The Rings of Hell
by Energybeing
Summary: Acathla wasn't the only thing found buried. Of course, when Angelus killed the man who found it and then found himself in a hell dimension, it was forgotten about. For a time.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: this story is set in Buffy season 4, just after Oz left, and roughly season 4 for Stargate SG-1.

I don't own, whole or in any part, any of the Stargate or Buffy franchise, and this will continue to be the case throughout the story. So don't sue me.

~*~

Oz was gone. Willow thought, if she thought the words enough, they'd stop hurting, just become some kind of meaningless babble. Of course, she had come up with this idea after she'd realised she couldn't _stop_ thinking those words.

Buffy had gone on patrol. Willow had insisted that she go, it wasn't helpful having someone around all the time, fussing over her and making sure she was alright. Then again, it wasn't helpful being alone either. Nothing helped the dull ache where her heart should've been.

Since when did the room get so small? Even with the windows fully open, there wasn't enough air. Willow was constricted, trapped, suffocating. She had to get out. Oh, she knew it was dangerous in Sunnydale at night, but it was just as dangerous to be in a room with the walls closing in on her.

She felt a little better outside - it was a cold night for California, although Giles would probably say it was the height of summer back in England - and walking helped take her mind of things, as she counted her footsteps to avoid thinking. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work - the mind of Willow, infamous babbler, would never be at rest with so simple a task.

She didn't know where she was going. The destination didn't really bother her, and besides, Sunnydale was small enough that it was nigh on impossible to get lost.

It wasn't until she was outside the mansion which had been Angel's, before he left too, that Willow had an inkling of where she was. It was a bad area, plenty of vampires (well, this was Sunnydale, everywhere had plenty of vampires) and she realised that she should be scared. She couldn't quite figure out why she wasn't.

She wasn't even scared when a familiar voice commented dreamily, from a patch of shadow "Hmmm, you smell like my William. Dear little William, lost little William, trapped little William." the voice went on, in a singsong.

Drusilla stepped out of the shadows, face incredibly pale compared to darkness of her large eyes and cascading hair, looking almost consumptive from the reflected light of her red dress. Of course, thought Willow, when Angel had been evil, he'd shared the mansion with Drusilla and Spike too. It was only reasonable to expect that she'd come here, if she were looking for Spike.

Willow still wasn't scared. She expected it was the dark, hypnotic eyes, boring into hers as though trying to find every secret she had ever had. And she just stared back, spellbound. "Poor Red, I bumped her head. Now she's here, wishing her William were near." the crazy vampire sang sadly. Then she asked "Who is your William? I'd lend you mine, but he seems to be mislaid. Besides, he never was much for the sharing."

"Oz. His name is Oz." Willow replied hoarsely, and wasn't quite sure why she did. In fact, she wasn't sure why Drusilla hadn't killed her already.

Drusilla laughed, a deep rich chuckle. "Oh, the little man behind the curtain ran away to Emerald City! But he left behind his Red, who's sad now. She shouldn't be sad. Pixies aren't sad, you know." She said, quite seriously, looking up at the stars. Willow hadn't the faintest of ideas of how to respond to that, so she opted for a nod.

Then Drusilla looked at her again, consideringly. As though weighing her up for a meal. Of course, _now_ Willow felt scared, much, much too late. "Tell me, little one, will you come to tea? Miss Edith is lonely, there's no one home. Don't you worry, I won't eat you. The pixies say you're too sad, the tears you refuse to shed might make you salty. Ugh, salt." Drusilla asked, before beginning to waltz to a tune that only she heard.

Surprisingly enough, Willow actually contemplated the proposal. Perhaps it was because she was the first person since Oz left to not treat her as though she were fragile and might break at a touch. More probably though, given her luck, she'd fallen under her thrall, just as Kendra had before being slaughtered. And, despite that morbid thought, she accepted.

With an ecstatic clap and a joyful smile, Drusilla seized Willow's arm and lead her inside. (Willow shied away from the touch, but the vampire was too strong and too quick to be denied.) In a flash, she was upstairs being dragged into a dark, dusty room, primarily taken up with an ornate structure, a ring of some kind, on the floor. The light was poor, but she could see symbols unlike any she'd seen before - and after helping Giles research for years, she had seen a lot. She'd love to research this, she'd always preferred that aspect of Scooby work than the actually Slaying...

Her musings were interrupted when Drusilla said, quite lucidly "Already, the thought of Oz leaves your head. When left behind, one soon finds ways to fill in the empty space." She spoke sadly, as though through experience. Willow, suddenly feeling the peculiar need to comfort the other woman, gave her a quick smile. Drusilla's answering smile was like the sun coming up (or some similar, more vampire-friendly simile). "Will you stay for tea?"

"Yes. Yes, I believe I will." and she did, for most of the night. They just sat there, drinking tea by candlelight, talking about everything that crossed their minds - neither of them bothered to hold onto a train of thought for long, and the craziness that peppered Drusilla's conversation went unnoticed by the other woman, who, to be fair, donated her fair share of insanity to the conversation.

All in all, it was possibly the strangest night Willow had ever spent, and the odd thing was, she didn't care that she'd been at the mercy of a mentally unstable vampire for hours. Because, sometime during the conversation, she'd noticed that her heart ached less. It still ached, of course, but a crazy conversation with a crazy woman, occasionally touching on her crazy lover, helped her put things in perspective.

Besides, there was that mysterious ring to investigate.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam was woken up by a voice over the intercom ordering her to get to the 'gate room. Well, that wasn't, strictly speaking, true, but seeing as how Jack had ordered her to go to bed, and she was in fact working on a fascinating Asgard device (not that she had any idea what it did yet) that had recently been found off-world, that was her story, and she was sticking with it. She certainly wasn't going to tell Jack that she had in fact gone to bed - Sam had sat on it when she pulled her boots off.

Anyway, all thoughts of that kind were driven out of her head when she made it to the 'gate room a few minutes later. The Stargate was active, but the blue wormhole effect wasn't there. Instead, the event horizon was a shifting, opalescent rose-violet-lavender-lilac colour. Which was probably bad. When the Stargate did anything unusual, it was normally bad.

"What happened?" Sam asked Walter, the 'gate-guard currently on duty, even as her eyes skimmed the data readouts. Apparently, this phenomenon wasn't using any power whatsoever, was giving of no electromagnetic radiation (not even visible light, which begged the question "How am I seeing this?") and emitted no heat. Therefore, going by the readouts, the thing, whatever it was, shouldn't exist.

"Nothing! One moment everything was normal, the next it was like this!" replied Walter with just a hint of panic.

However, Sam's thought processes on this problem were soon interrupted by the appearance of one Jack O'Neill. "Major, I thought I ordered you to go to bed?" he said, from behind her. But when he caught sight of the curious phenomenon, and stepped up beside her, he said "I'm sure this is why you're awake. You wouldn't have happened to disobey my orders, would you?" And, of course, she just had to blush, giving the game away.

Chuckling that he'd caught her out - although Sam knew she'd be getting an earful later - Jack walked away, calling over his shoulder "I'll just go and wake up Teal'c and Daniel. Why should we slave away whilst they snooze? Or meditate?" he said, no doubt planning an outlandish prank to wake Daniel with. Those pranks were pretty much the only slaving the Colonel ever did on base - he railroaded everyone else into writing his reports.

Nevertheless, Sam wished him luck with his endeavours. She knew for a fact that Daniel had been studying some ancient tome or other when she'd gone to bed, so it was likely he was still up - he had an even worse problem letting go of an interesting find than she did. As for Teal'c, well, he didn't really sleep at all.

But it was time to return to the problem at hand. Sam tried everything - disconnecting the power supply (even though the 'gate wasn't using it), dialling another 'gate (apparently the phenomenon, whatever it was, wasn't an active wormhole) even sending through a MALP (although they lost contact as soon as it crossed the event horizon, which indicated that it was in fact a wormhole of some kind after all) but nothing worked. And so engrossed was Sam in trying to solve the problem that she wasn't even aware that the rest of her team had joined her, until Teal'c began to speak in full tale-telling mode.

"Once, Master Bra'tak told me of a time when he led a force of the servants of Apophis against a small group of Horus-guards. They were digging something up, some technology that bore resemblance to the Stargates, and there was a battle. Blood was shed. However, when the battle was over and Bra'tak returned to the Stargate to report his victory, the way was blocked by phenomenon similar to this, save that it was more reddish in hue."

Sam, having spun around to look at Teal'c as he spoke, said "So you're saying that another device, on Earth, could be responsible for this?"

Teal'c merely stared at her. "What I am saying, Major Carter, is that Master Bra'tak encountered something similar to that which we now face." Sam sighed. Sometimes, Teal'c could be incredibly literal-minded.

However, the hypothesis that the phenomenon was caused by a machine on Earth was certainly worth investigating. Tomorrow, because at this ridiculously early hour, it would be impossible to get access to the satellites she would need to check to see if there had been any abnormal surges of electromagnetic radiation. And because, now, Sam was actually tired and wanted to go to bed.

At that moment, the Stargate winked out.

~*~

The day after (well, in the morning) it had been child's-play for Sam to locate the curious spike of gamma radiation that had started at the same time as the phenomenon (as she had taken to calling it, for want of a better term) and also ending at the same time, which logically suggested that it had been the cause. It had come from a small city, a few hours away from LA. Sunnydale. Unfortunately, the frequency of the radiation had prevented her from pinpointing the exact location.

Even more unfortunately, when she brought the information to General Hammond, he told her in no uncertain terms not to investigate the situation any further. "The Air-Force has no jurisdiction there."

But Sam wouldn't stand for that. If the phenomenon ever occurred again, it could trap them for hours - which could cause the loss of the planet. Indeed, if it occurred at the same time as an active wormhole, the results could be catastrophic. She told all of this to her fellow SG-1 members, who entirely supported her view - Jack even went so far as to say that Hammond probably did too, but was compelled to dictate policy to her.

It was Daniel that came up with the idea. "I've got a leave of absence coming up. Sunnydale has a university, no? It shouldn't be hard for me to arrange to give a few lectures there - giving me a legitimate reason to be in Sunnydale - and, well if I happen to look around at the same time..." he trailed off, off-put by Jack's open mouthed stare. "What?" Daniel asked, clearly disconcerted.

"You came up with a good idea. What's more, a good idea that gets us _around the rules!_ Danny-boy, I think you're growing up!" said Jack, with mock-shock. Daniel punched him playfully on the arm while pretending to be put-out, but clearly actually rather proud. Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow at the entire proceedings.

"I'm going with you." interjected Sam, before Jack and Daniel started bickering.

"But you can't, Major. You're Airforce, I don't think there's any chance of you getting permission to go there." responded Jack.

"I have a PhD too, you know, sir. I can teach - I've done it at the Airforce Academy. Besides, how would Daniel know what to look for?" Sam said with a note of triumph in her voice. Both Jack and Daniel tried to object, but Sam glared at them until they backed down.

So, that was all settled. Daniel and her would go to Sunnydale and investigate the source of the phenomenon. And have some leave at the same time. Perfect.


	3. Chapter 3

Of course, after Willow's conversation with Drusilla (if she could even call it that) she had needed sleep. After all, she wasn't Buffy, who seemed to be able to get away with about an hour of sleep a night. Or Giles, for that matter, who could seemingly go without sleep for weeks when researching the latest apocalypse.

But anyway, Willow had needed a place to sleep. Going back to the dorms was out of the question - Buffy was bound to have returned from patrol by now, and Willow didn't want to have to explain where she'd been for the last few hours. So she went to her parent's house (Willow had always called it that, even when she was little. Her parents simply weren't around enough for it to qualify as a home.)

To her everlasting lack of surprise, neither of her parents were there. But that didn't matter, because her bed was. And boy, what an inviting bed it was. Even as Willow fell asleep on it almost instantly, she was thinking how much she preferred it to her dorm room with Buffy. Not the lack of Buffy, that it is, but the comfort of the bed. Or, at least she thought she was thinking that. Willow plunged into a deep, dreamless sleep almost instantly upon her head hitting the pillow.

Unfortunately, no matter how much Willow might have wanted it otherwise, wakefulness must always intrude upon even the most blissful sleep. Today was no exception to that rule, as she woke up and stretched luxuriously, revelling in the novelty of not being woken up by a noisy Slayer. Of course, only moments later, she realized _why_this was the case.

Willow gasped "Ohmygod, Buffy will be so worried!" she cried, as she quickly threw on some new clothes (if she went back in the clothes she left in, wrinkled as they were, Buffy would suspect something. Of course, the real explanation wouldn't be what Buffy would expect it to be, but Buffy would keep nagging at her until eventually she let slip she'd been with Drusilla, and Buffy would stake her - Drusilla, not Willow - and Willow didn't want that to happen, and why was she getting so panicky?) and almost flew down the stairs and out the door, thanking the Goddess that it was a Sunday and she hadn't missed any classes.

She made it to the campus in record time, before crashing into a blond woman coming out of the receptionist's office, and knocking her to the ground in her hurry. Willow didn't even notice, so busy with her tortuous thoughts that she didn't even notice. Then, all of a sudden, she burst into her dorm, panting heavily and causing Buffy to leap off her bed yelp of surprise.

"Will! Where have you been? What have you been doing?" began Buffy after she regained her composure.

Willow, waiting until her heart stopped feeling as though it was trying to drill its way out of chest, with support from her ever-rebellious lungs, answered "I couldn't face sleeping in here. There were just too many memories of Oz. So I went for a walk while you were out patrolling, and eventually I ended up by my parent's house, and I was so tired I just went to sleep there. I only actually woke up a few minutes ago, but I ran here because I thought you might be worried." Willow thought that covered everything, and only hoped her still-red face would be taken to be flushed by the exercise rather than the blush she had every time she lied.

"Oh." said Buffy, obviously hoping that the news would be juicier. Then she brightened as she readied herself to inform Willow of the latest gossip. "Hey, guess what? Next week, there's going to be two guest lecturers, and I thought I might go to one of their talks."

Well, that was certainly unexpected. Buffy and education were normally unmixy things, as she would put it. Which, to Willow's suspicious mind, meant that there must be some ulterior motive to her wanting to go. "What's the catch?" asked Willow, glad to draw the attention away from herself. But then, Buffy was always good in the spotlight.

"Well, one of the lectures would be in place of our history lesson, which is of the good." replied Buffy, but Willow knew that Buffy _never_ needed an excuse to skip history (it was a miracle she'd even gotten on the course) which meant that there was something Buffy wasn't saying.

"Who is it?" asked Willow, smothering a sigh. Buffy could be so transparent at times. But if she wanted to go to a lecture to impress Riley, then so be it. It's no different from when Cordelia checked out _War and Peace_ to impress a boy. But, knowing Buffy and her taste for dangerous men (which Angel, and Angelus, certainly qualified for) it could just as easily be someone else. Although probably not Spike. Willow didn't think Buffy would ever stoop that low.

Willow's train of thought was derailed by Buffy blushing (blushing? Buffy?) "Well, you haven't seen the lecturer..."

~*~

It had been ridiculously easy for Sam to arrange for a few lectures for herself and Daniel. Hammond, clearly knowing why the pair was going, had discouraged them in his official capacity before supporting them unofficially (meaning Sam owed Jack $5, she'd been sure Hammond was too rule-bound to do that). The university had been pathetically grateful to have such distinguished speakers coming to visit (and seeing the amount of accidents previous visitors had had there, Sam could see why) and had rushed to get them rooms for them to stay in. Of course, Sam had wanted as much time as possible to look around, so they'd asked for them right away.

Despite Daniel's sudden attack of nerves that he'd be teaching tomorrow (which Jack had quelled by reminding him of all the times Daniel had lectured him) and Jack's tantrum that he couldn't get permission to fly them to LA himself, it had been a simple matter for them to make the journey there. An upside of never knowing when you might have to spend a lot of time off-world is that one is almost always packed.

The only trouble that was had was when Sam left the university's reception to be sent sprawling by a preoccupied flying redhead (did that girls feet even touch the ground?) which had Sam nostalgic for the strong discipline of the Airforce Academy.

Daniel and Sam had both decided that it would be for the best of they looked around after dark - after all, they had just travelled across states, they should have some rest. They would definitely not be preparing their lectures. No, no need for that.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam had decided not to go out looking for anything mysterious tonight. She couldn't adequately articulate why (although she'd tried. Daniel had still gone out anyway) but as soon as the sun went down, she'd felt... odd. That was the only word for it, although to say that it was her feeling it wasn't exactly accurate. She felt odd outside her body. It was as though there were little patches of oddness running around Sunnydale, completely autonomous from her yet at the same time paradoxically part of her. It was impossible to explain.

So she'd stayed inside. Daniel had promised he wouldn't be long, he'd only look around the campus a little. Sam would stay awake waiting for him. She would. Really...

~*~

It was a nice night outside, thought Daniel. Completely devoid of any pieces of Sam drifting around. Just what had she talking about? Daniel had seen plenty of strange things - they all had, at one time or another - but this was Earth. There weren't any Goa'uld here. Probably.

So he couldn't understand what Sam had meant. It was possible that, as a side-effect of carrying Jolinar, she could sense nearby Goa'uld, but certainly not in the manner she'd described.

Still, he'd promised he wouldn't wander far, and, as he caught sight of a tiny blond striding purposefully towards him, it seemed as though that were true. The blonde stopped a few feet from him, put her hands on her hips and demanded "What do you think you're doing out so late?". She was clearly too young to be a member of staff here, coming to tell him off, so he figured she'd mistaken him for someone else.

"I'm going to have to go with walking." Daniel replied, somewhat flippantly. He'd never gotten on all that much with young people, not even when he'd been one. He didn't even feel that comfortable around Cassie, and she was virtually his niece.

"Don't you know it's dangerous around here at night? You know, with muggings and... thieves and... other stuff like that!" Daniel, using his mighty power of deductive reasoning, suspected that she wanted him gone, but wasn't going to tell him why.

"So, if it's that dangerous out, why are you here?" he asked, fighting the urge to get away while he still could. This was why he'd never wanted to teach professionally.

"I can take care of myse-" the diminutive figure began, before leaping forward and pushing Daniel to the side. He landed awkwardly, but was quickly on his feet when he heard the distinctive sound of an exchange of blows. However, before he could see the combatants, there was a curious hissing sound, and all he saw was the blond, who looked like she'd just fought someone off.

The fact that there was no one around, and nowhere for anyone to have run to or hide, sort of put paid to that theory though.

~*~

Sam woke up with a gasp. She hadn't even realised she'd fallen asleep, but she certainly knew why she'd woken up - the brief burst of burning fire she'd felt erupting through her chest. Yet she wasn't wounded. Just what was going on with her? She barely had time to think the question before she was asleep in her chair once more.

~*~

"Okay" said Daniel, a little shaken "What the hell just happened?"

The blond danced a little from foot to foot as she came up with what would doubtlessly be a cover story. "Umm, a robber. A really _fast_ one. He went thataway" she said, pointing in a clearly arbitrary direction - Daniel could tell because it was the only one that led to a dead end.

The upside of working for a top-secret military organization is that the cover stories are good. Which meant that this girl clearly wasn't a part of whatever it was that meant that Airforce personnel shouldn't be here. Not that he'd ever suspected she was, she was way too young. So he just stared at her for a while, watching her squirm a little, before shrugging and heading back to Sam. She'd want to hear all about this.

~*~

Buffy let out a sigh of relief as she watched Dr Jackson - for it was he, she had recognized him from the photograph - turned and left her to her patrol. Normally, citizens of Sunnydale would have blindly accepted whatever excuse she chose to give, due to all the weirdness they got from living on a Hellmouth, but he was probably too new here for the Sunnydale-syndrome to kick in.

Anyway, this would doubtlessly make her being in his lecture in a few days rather awkward.

~*~

As Daniel went into the common room (he and Sam were staying in what had been a frat house, the Delta-Zeta-Kappa's.) he saw that Sam had crashed out on an old arm chair. For a moment, he was tempted to leave her be - neither of them had had much sleep in the last couple of days - but curiosity over what she'd say about his little outing won out.

He prodded her gently - Sam was a light sleeper, that normally got her up - but she just kept on sleeping without moving a muscle. He shook her lightly, but still no response. Beginning to get worried now, he checked her pulse. Steady.

It wasn't until Daniel poured a glass of water over her head (cringing with sympathy as he did so - Jack had done it to him once) that she woke up spluttering.

The fact that she wasn't spluttering in English alarmed him somewhat. The fact that it was Latin and she hadn't been anywhere near an Ancient repository alarmed him somewhat more. But what she was saying, over and over again whilst she seemed to be in some kind of trance, that downright scared him.

But the odd thing was, he didn't know why the words inspired such fear in him (besides, of course, those circumstances)

_"Erus caelum redíbit. Erus caelum recederi. Erus caelum redíbit. Erus caelum recederi..."_


	5. Chapter 5

Willow went out again that night, soon after Buffy left for patrol. Although, of course, she wasn't intending to while the night away talking with Drusilla again, she had classes tomorrow, she couldn't sleep for most of the day.

Although, if she _were_ to meet Drusilla (not that she was planning to), Willow would most certainly ask what exactly she was doing here - strangely enough, although they talked about nearly everything else, that topic of conversation hadn't come up.

Not that she wanted to see Drusilla. After all, the crazy vampire might decide to have her for dinner as much as give her tea this time. No, she was just heading on down to the mansion because - because it was a scenic walk. Yes, that was it.

It had never crossed Willow's mind that she'd meet another vampire on the way. So when one came snarling at her from out of nowhere, she was, quite naturally, scared out of her wits.

~*~

"Blast" said Jack, as he watched the Stargate light up. He'd been hoping it would be a quiet night, no weird non-wormhole phenomenon things to speak of. But this was the SGC, when did anything ever go the way it wanted it to?

Although, there was something different about the colour. Rather than the faded, washed-out (and somewhat girly) pastel colours that the phenomenon had been last time, the thing (Jack never could do the whole technobabble thing, so if no one knew what the phenomenon was, it was a thing, right? See, logical.) had bright, swirling silvery slashes interwoven with a darker, crimson hue.

Hadn't Teal'c said the thing had been reddish when Bra'tak had told him about it?

It sure was interesting to look at. Jack felt that he could do so all day (or night). There was something oddly... attractive... about it...

~*~

Suddenly, Sam snapped out of whatever trance she'd been in. Daniel let out a sigh of relief, as the sense of tension that had been tying his stomach in knots evaporated.

"Why am I covered in water?" asked Sam indignantly, running her fingers through her dripping hair. Yup, thought Daniel, she's definitely back.

~*~

"Would you be after hurting my pretty? Because you're not allowed to do that. Unless she asks you. And she didn't ask you. The moon says you're a bad boy." came a voice from a patch of shadows, which revealed itself to be Drusilla. Willow wondered vaguely how someone dressed in red could blend in so well with shadows. Unwanted images of tigers hunting prey sprung to mind.

"Who're you?" spat the vampire. Willow thought he must be newly risen - all the vampires who'd been in town when Drusilla had been had been terrified of her. Which made the sudden feeling of relief Willow felt at her appearance even stranger. Surely she should be more nervous than less so?

Drusilla didn't answer, she just stepped in front of Willow. As far as Willow could tell, nothing happened. So she couldn't understand why Drusilla let out a satisfied sound, turning around and leaving the vampire standing where he was, stock-still.

~*~

Jack blinked. What the hell was he doing in the 'gate room? One minute he'd been looking at the 'gate, now he was scarily close to walking through it. If the phenomenon hadn't ended right then, he'd have walked right through.

So, it was about time he called Daniel and Sam. They should know that, whatever this thing was, it had hypnotizing properties. In the meantime, every time that thing started up again, they'd evacuate the room and close the blast doors.

~*~

"What did you do?" Willow asked curiosity, staring at the immobile vampire. She couldn't quite quell the feeling that at any moment it might jump at her.

"The moon said he was bad. So it sent down its light and rooted around in his head. Statue now. Soon he'll run away and be bad somewhere else, but for now, he won't be bad. He's a pretty statue. Do you want it?" replied Drusilla, somewhat cryptically. Willow guessed she must've hypnotized him somehow.

But before Willow could say anything else, Drusilla cocked her head to one side, staring off into the distance - although Willow was sure that that wasn't what Drusilla was seeing. "Go now, little red one, there are others abroad this night. The stars say that those that have visited them are visiting here, but something's going horribly wrong. Gong. Gone. Go." sang the insane woman, before vanishing into the shadows.

Willow guessed that was her cue to leave.

~*~

"So, I was asleep, then you poured water on me and I started speaking Latin. I've really got to find a new job." mused Sam, after Daniel relayed to her the events of the last few minutes. "What was I saying?" she asked.

Daniel blanched - rather an extreme reaction, given the almost innocuous nature of the words. They heard far worse from Goa'uld all the time. "You were chanting "The lord of the sky has left. The lord of the sky will return." over and over again."

"Right. Got any ideas what that means?" Sam questioned, but Daniel shook his head. "Anyway, I need some air. What say you we talk and walk?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No, but it's really stuffy in here. I'm none too keen on suffocating." For some reason, Sam wanted nothing more than to get outside. Daniel, though, didn't seem to fancy the idea, but when Sam was already half-way out of the door, he decided to tag along.

Of course, the sense that someone was watching her as soon as she got outside soon put a damper on Sam's enthusiasm.

~*~

Jack sighed in frustration as yet again his cell phone said "No connection". His phone was good enough to get connection inside a mountain, but not across a few states. Which meant that both Sam and Daniel had their phones off. Useless.

It didn't even occur to him that something was messing with the signal.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hey there!" called a voice from across the grounds. Daniel saw that it belonged to yet another young woman, a redhead this time. He vaguely wondered whether this was some kind of meeting place at this time of night - he wouldn't have thought that there'd be so many people here otherwise.

Sam, who seemed to be recovering rapidly now that the madwoman had vanished, replied in a tired voice "Hello. What do you want?" not the politest response she'd ever given, but then, considering the day she'd had, perhaps it was apt.

The woman certainly didn't seem put out by it. "I'm Willow. I see you've met Drusilla." Willow seemed unusually cheerful for so early an hour. Daniel supposed that she must have seen their meeting with - Drusilla, was it?

To his mild surprise, Sam chuckled. "You could say that." she said drily. "You could also say that she accosted us and babbled at us - that would be more accurate."

Willow smiled at that "Yeah, she's more than a little crazy. But anyway, I should really get going." and she turned and walked away without another word.

Well, thought Daniel, this town is certainly weird. Sam, on the other hand, was feeling relief that the crazy woman had a name. It made things a lot more - real. It made her feel far less crazy.

And really tired. Sam did, after all, have to lecture some postgrads about time dilation near black holes (something she knew far more about than she'd care to) first thing in the morning, followed by some other lecture which she hadn't even begun to prepare. She could tell that Daniel was thinking exactly the same thing (well, she doubted he'd be talking about black holes - probably some kind of archaeological dig or other). Perhaps they should've put some more time into their cover story to make it more credible.

So the pair went back to their frat house, and Sam hoped she didn't go back into some trance and start speaking Latin. Not that there was anything she could do about it if she did. Although, for some reason, she suspected that she wouldn't.

~*~

It had taken all of five minutes for Jack to convince Hammond to let him contact the Tok'ra, even though the General had been staunchly against it when he had begun. Jack put it down to his charming nature. Hammond had even agreed to let Jack take the mission, and he hadn't even needed any prompting, which was more than he'd expected.

Of course, it had to be sheer coincidence that Martouf just happened to be visiting the Tok'ra contact at the time.

"What can I do for you, Colonel O'Neill?" Martouf asked, somewhat coldly - well, Jack supposed he deserved that, given his clear distrust for all snakes, allies or not.

"Oh, it's not for me, I assure you. Daniel wants your information on some Latin thing or other - hold on a moment, I wrote it down somewhere..." he said, rummaging for the note - and taking great pleasure in the look of impatience on the other man's face. "Ah, here we go! Yes, Daniel wants to know about someone calling themselves "Erus caelum""

Martouf's head jerked up sharply at those last words. "Are you sure? Are you positive it was that, and not "Erus divum?" he demands. Jack's somewhat taken aback by his vehemence.

"Uh, yeah. I'm sure. Erus caelum. That's what Daniel said." Jack replied, watching curiously as Martouf schooled his face to be impassive, once again adhering to the Tok'ra policy of giving away as little information as possible, even in the form of expressions.

"You are aware of the Goa'uld hierarchy, the positions of System Lords and the like? That Ra, before you killed him, held the rank of Supreme Commander of the System Lords?" Jack nodded, well aware. He'd met too many of them not to be. "Before Ra, there was Apep, the Overlord, and below him were ranks of Underlords - essentially the same as the hierarchy in place today - until he was overthrown." Jack nodded again - he vaguely remembered Daniel mentioning something like this to him, but he hadn't paid much attention to it.

"Before them, when the Goa'uld had not even discovered how to get off world, there was Caelus - the "Erus caelum" of which you speak. He was a genius - almost all Goa'uld technology that is used today are mere adaptations of his designs - and, politically, the greatest leader the Goa'uld have ever known. He was the only being in our history to curb the violent tendencies of our race, to lead them as peaceful colonisers, forging alliances with other races rather than subjugating them. However, many believe him to be a legend, as no tangible proof of his existence has ever been found." Martouf continued, clearly in awe of this ancient person. Personally, Jack didn't believe that it was even possible for a Goa'uld to be good - he suspected that the Tok'ra, given half the chance, would usurp the Goa'uld and be tyrants in their place.

Nevertheless, he was curious. "What happened to him?" Jack thought that probably he had been overthrown by ambitious Goa'uld - that's always the sort of thing that happened.

"He vanished. No one knows where. But no Goa'uld will speak his name, and any technology bearing his mark is destroyed, along with any who have seen it." finished Martouf. Then he frowned, and added "However, it must be said that all technology we have found that we thought was made by him were fakes."

Well, thought Jack, anyone the Goa'uld are scared of is alright by me. Although, I'd appreciate them not messing around with my Stargate.

Then the full implications of what he'd heard hit him. Perhaps now, they'd finally found someone who could end the threat of the Goa'uld, once and for all!

~*~

Somewhere, beyond the constraints of time, in a place that defied all attempts at description, someone without a body - or at least one which the denizens of this dimension might recognize as such - smiled, if it were possible to describe how a non-corporeal being showed triumph as smiling.

~*~

Author's note: all reference to the Goa'uld hierarchy is canon, save for Caelus (if you remember, Apep was supplanted by Anubis?)

Caelus was the Roman counterpart of Ouranos (or Uranus). In mythology, he was castrated and killed by his son Saturn (Kronos), who was later cut into a thousand pieces by his son, Jupiter (Zeus), and scattered around the depths of Tartarus (which is the same in Roman mythology). Caelus was known as god of the sky - his realm, Caelum (Heaven, in English) is the counterpart to Olympus. Incidentally, it's the root of the word celestial.

In Roman mythology, Uranus is far more commonly referred to than Caelus, despite Caelus being a Roman deity whereas Uranus is merely a translation of the Greek Ouranos. That's why the planet Uranus is called Uranus rather than Caelus. So Caelus seems like the perfect mystery god, no?

Oh, and "Erus divum" also means lord of the sky, just without the subtext of heaven - divum is more mundane.


	7. Chapter 7

"Hey there!" called a voice from across the grounds. Daniel saw that it belonged to yet another young woman, a redhead this time. He vaguely wondered whether this was some kind of meeting place at this time of night - he wouldn't have thought that there'd be so many people here otherwise.

Sam, who seemed to be recovering rapidly now that the madwoman had vanished, replied in a tired voice "Hello. What do you want?" not the politest response she'd ever given, but then, considering the day she'd had, perhaps it was apt.

The woman certainly didn't seem put out by it. "I'm Willow. I see you've met Drusilla." Willow seemed unusually cheerful for so early an hour. Daniel supposed that she must have seen their meeting with - Drusilla, was it?

To his mild surprise, Sam chuckled. "You could say that." she said drily. "You could also say that she accosted us and babbled at us - that would be more accurate."

Willow smiled at that "Yeah, she's more than a little crazy. But anyway, I should really get going." and she turned and walked away without another word.

Well, thought Daniel, this town is certainly weird. Sam, on the other hand, was feeling relief that the crazy woman had a name. It made things a lot more - real. It made her feel far less crazy.

And really tired. Sam did, after all, have to lecture some postgrads about time dilation near black holes (something she knew far more about than she'd care to) first thing in the morning, followed by some other lecture which she hadn't even begun to prepare. She could tell that Daniel was thinking exactly the same thing (well, she doubted he'd be talking about black holes - probably some kind of archaeological dig or other). Perhaps they should've put some more time into their cover story to make it more credible.

So the pair went back to their frat house, and Sam hoped she didn't go back into some trance and start speaking Latin. Not that there was anything she could do about it if she did. Although, for some reason, she suspected that she wouldn't.

~*~

It had taken all of five minutes for Jack to convince Hammond to let him contact the Tok'ra, even though the General had been staunchly against it when he had begun. Jack put it down to his charming nature. Hammond had even agreed to let Jack take the mission, and he hadn't even needed any prompting, which was more than he'd expected.

Of course, it had to be sheer coincidence that Martouf just happened to be visiting the Tok'ra contact at the time.

"What can I do for you, Colonel O'Neill?" Martouf asked, somewhat coldly - well, Jack supposed he deserved that, given his clear distrust for all snakes, allies or not.

"Oh, it's not for me, I assure you. Daniel wants your information on some Latin thing or other - hold on a moment, I wrote it down somewhere..." he said, rummaging for the note - and taking great pleasure in the look of impatience on the other man's face. "Ah, here we go! Yes, Daniel wants to know about someone calling themselves "Erus caelum""

Martouf's head jerked up sharply at those last words. "Are you sure? Are you positive it was that, and not "Erus divum?" he demands. Jack's somewhat taken aback by his vehemence.

"Uh, yeah. I'm sure. Erus caelum. That's what Daniel said." Jack replied, watching curiously as Martouf schooled his face to be impassive, once again adhering to the Tok'ra policy of giving away as little information as possible, even in the form of expressions.

"You are aware of the Goa'uld hierarchy, the positions of System Lords and the like? That Ra, before you killed him, held the rank of Supreme Commander of the System Lords?" Jack nodded, well aware. He'd met too many of them not to be. "Before Ra, there was Apep, the Overlord, and below him were ranks of Underlords - essentially the same as the hierarchy in place today - until he was overthrown." Jack nodded again - he vaguely remembered Daniel mentioning something like this to him, but he hadn't paid much attention to it.

"Before them, when the Goa'uld had not even discovered how to get off world, there was Caelus - the "Erus caelum" of which you speak. He was a genius - almost all Goa'uld technology that is used today are mere adaptations of his designs - and, politically, the greatest leader the Goa'uld have ever known. He was the only being in our history to curb the violent tendencies of our race, to lead them as peaceful colonisers, forging alliances with other races rather than subjugating them. However, many believe him to be a legend, as no tangible proof of his existence has ever been found." Martouf continued, clearly in awe of this ancient person. Personally, Jack didn't believe that it was even possible for a Goa'uld to be good - he suspected that the Tok'ra, given half the chance, would usurp the Goa'uld and be tyrants in their place.

Nevertheless, he was curious. "What happened to him?" Jack thought that probably he had been overthrown by ambitious Goa'uld - that's always the sort of thing that happened.

"He vanished. No one knows where. But no Goa'uld will speak his name, and any technology bearing his mark is destroyed, along with any who have seen it." finished Martouf. Then he frowned, and added "However, it must be said that all technology we have found that we thought was made by him were fakes."

Well, thought Jack, anyone the Goa'uld are scared of is alright by me. Although, I'd appreciate them not messing around with my Stargate.

Then the full implications of what he'd heard hit him. Perhaps now, they'd finally found someone who could end the threat of the Goa'uld, once and for all!

~*~

Somewhere, beyond the constraints of time, in a place that defied all attempts at description, someone without a body - or at least one which the denizens of this dimension might recognize as such - smiled, if it were possible to describe how a non-corporeal being showed triumph as smiling.

~*~

Author's note: all reference to the Goa'uld hierarchy is canon, save for Caelus (if you remember, Apep was supplanted by Anubis?)

Caelus was the Roman counterpart of Ouranos (or Uranus). In mythology, he was castrated and killed by his son Saturn (Kronos), who was later cut into a thousand pieces by his son, Jupiter (Zeus), and scattered around the depths of Tartarus (which is the same in Roman mythology). Caelus was known as god of the sky - his realm, Caelum (Heaven, in English) is the counterpart to Olympus. Incidentally, it's the root of the word celestial.

In Roman mythology, Uranus is far more commonly referred to than Caelus, despite Caelus being a Roman deity whereas Uranus is merely a translation of the Greek Ouranos. That's why the planet Uranus is called Uranus rather than Caelus. So Caelus seems like the perfect mystery god, no?

Oh, and "Erus divum" also means lord of the sky, just without the subtext of heaven - divum is more mundane.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack was still mulling over the possibilities of making an alliance with this Caelus. It seemed as though, at last, there was an alien who'd be willing to share their technologies - and one that had already subdued the Goa'uld (although, admittedly, he had _been_ a Goa'uld, which lead to some misgivings).

It took but a few minutes to brief Hammond about Martouf's information - which Jack was more than a little surprised he'd volunteered it at all, given the Tok'ra's track record - and the General seemed as interested as Jack had been.

Which just left Jack to call Daniel and tell him the news - if he knew his friend, and he did, Daniel would be ecstatic about it. Of course, that meant that there had to be a phone connection. Strangely enough, calls anywhere else seemed to work fine. Jack put it down to whatever was causing the phenomenon, he was sure Sam had mentioned radiation of some kind, and that's as good an explanation as any.

Fortunately, his luck was in, and the call went straight through. "Jack, surely you can't have found something already? I only told you about it a couple of hours ago." said Daniel over the phone, clearly into his whole "I-Hate-Mornings" routine - everyone in the SGC avoided him until he'd had at least his third coffee of the morning.

So Jack, with gleeful and mischevious malice (he enjoyed teasing Daniel, especially in the mornings) said "Nah, of course I haven't found anything. I just called because I took it upon myself to be your alarm clock this fine morning. Charitable of me I know, but that's just the kind of man I am."

There was silence on the other end for several moments, before Daniel replied "That was me not dignifying that with a response and giving you a reproachful glare. It doesn't work so well when I can't see you. Anyway, Jack, I've got to give a lecture in a half an hour or so, so if you could...?"

Jack pouted, before remembering that Daniel couldn't see it - which was just as well, since the last time Jack had done it Daniel had thrown a bowl of popcorn at him - and told Daniel about Martouf's information, stressing the possibilities of meeting such a - man? Is that the correct term? - as Caelus was claimed to be.

No sooner had he done so, and when Daniel had been just on the verge of telling him something, the line cut out. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Unfortunately, Jack now had no excuse not to do paperwork.

~*~

Sam had just finished her postgrad lecture on time dilation, and was hoping to catch Daniel before her next one in a few minutes - he'd said that Jack had given him some kind of information this morning, but hadn't had the time to explain what (they really needed to find a better cover story for the next time they had to do something like this. Which hopefully they never would) but it turned out that the science and humanities buildings were at the opposite ends of the grounds, and Sam simply didn't have the time to find him.

She'd decided to lecture on theoretical wormhole physics - Sam had done it often enough at the Airforce Academy to know it off by heart. Although she expected that as few people here would understand it as the cadets had, probably less.

Sure enough, as she wound down her talk, she found that half her class was asleep, and the rest was clearly not paying attention. Well, that was more or less what she'd expected.

Well, perhaps to say that all the class was inattentive was inaccurate - there was one girl who had been industriously taking notes throughout. She even recognized her - she was the redhead her and Daniel had encountered last night - what was her name? Willow, that was it.

Indeed, as though to prove that she had indeed been paying attention, as soon as Sam finished Willow's hand shot into the air. Her classmates began to stir, but quickly lapsed back into quiescence when they realized the class hadn't finished. "Yes?" asked Sam.

"Why wouldn't one see the view from the other side of the wormhole, rather than the blue surface you postulate?" Okay, a fairly run-of-the-mill question, one Sam was sure she had covered. But hey, she could deal with that, there wasn't long left till the end of the lesson.

"Because if energy or matter collided inside the wormhole - as they would be bound to do, if they were coming from either direction - it would violate its stability, but because energy is released by the transfer, some visible sign must occur." Sam explained as concisely as possible.

As soon as she had done so, a furiously scribbling Willow raised her other hand. Sam waited until she'd finished - she admired the studious ethics of this girl, she had been much the same at her age (albeit an Airforce cadet). Sam nodded at Willow to encourage her to speak.

"Surely one wouldn't need a giant structure to stabilize a wormhole? Wouldn't a subatomic Casimir engine produce enough negative mass to isolate and enlarge the naturally occurring wormholes from the quantum foam, stabilizing them sufficiently to allow energy, if not matter, to pass through?"

Okay, so she wasn't just studious, she understood the subject and was curious about it - and had come up with an alternate hypothesis that, while wildly impractical and beyond the current reaches of science (the energy drain to enlarge a wormhole enough for even light to pass through would be colossal, and it's impossible to build a Casimir engine that small), was theoretically viable - in about an hour. While listening to a lecture and writing notes on it. Impressive.

While launching into a complex and detailed answer, she was thinking about how much she wanted to talk to this mysterious redheaded genius - although after Sam had talked to Daniel, she wanted to know his take on this.

After the bell went, and the other members of the class eagerly rushed off, Sam held Willow behind. "Willow, I'd love to talk to you some more about your theories, but I've got to meet a colleague right now, and I'm busy for the rest of the day, but could we talk after lessons end for the day?" Sam asked.

Willow looked on the verge of accepting joyfully, but then a look came across her face - one Sam recognized as remembering a prior engagement. "Sorry, but I promised a friend I'd meet her, and I don't know when we will finish. Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow then." Sam replied. At that, they both headed off to do their respective things.

~*~

Daniel seemed curiously unimpressed when Sam told him about her discussion with Willow - he seemed anxious to tell her something, no doubt the information that Jack had given him this morning.

Which was more than understandable, Sam thought, when he told her about Caelus.

"I think Willow has something to do with it." Sam proclaimed.

Daniel, surprised, asked her why. "Come on, a genius - a genius knowledgable about wormholes, no less - in the same area as something that's messing with our Stargate. That can't be coincidence."

Well, put like that, Daniel supposed she had a point. "What are you planning on doing about it?" he asked.

"She said she was meeting someone tonight. I bet it's that crazy Drusilla woman, and they're going to go to whatever's causing the phenomenon. So I'm going to follow her."

"You _what_?" several people passing by looked at Daniel in askance after that loud outburst. Although, pretty soon after he said it, he saw the point to it.

"You don't have to come." Sam said, reproachfully and more than a little teasingly.

"The last time I left you alone you fell asleep and started spouting Latin. I'm not planning on doing it again. Anyway, how would you explain following her?" Daniel replied defensively - he sensed one of the infamous Carter-teases that were the nightmares of the SGC coming on. Sam rarely teased, but when she did, she was a horror.

"Well, if you went with me, we could pretend to be lovers out for a stroll if she saw us." Sam answered in a seductive purr, eyes alight with amusement.

"Sorry, but I'm more attracted to Willow than you." he said quite seriously. He didn't understand why Sam burst into peal after peal of laughter. What, it was true - he'd always had a thing for redheads, remembering Sarah, and anyway, Jack would probably shoot him if he went after Sam.

~*~

Willow had felt a little uncomfortable lying to Dr. Carter, but she supposed, as she was lying to her best friend about where she as going at nights (she remembered how she'd felt when Buffy had snuck off in order to visit Angel, and wondered whether Buffy felt the same now) it wouldn't make a lot of sense for her to tell a visiting professor about it - not that she'd believe that Drusilla was a vampire anyway.

Although Willow couldn't fully understand why she was willing to spend another night in the company of someone who had once put her in a coma.

Anyway, it took only a matter of minutes at a fast walk (a good thing Sunnydale is so small) to reach the mansion, and she didn't even have to wait for Drusilla at all - as a matter of fact, Drusilla was waiting for her.

Without a word, Drusilla, upon seeing Willow, turned and went into the mansion, and Willow followed meekly, like a lamb to the slaughter. Surely there was something wrong with her to be acting like this? But try as she might, she couldn't muster the will to do anything else.

Drusilla led her silently to the room where they'd had tea that first night - the room with the ring that she'd wanted to study. Drusilla stood in the middle of it, as though waiting for something, and Willow, compelled by some unseen force, joined her.

Moments later, Sam, with Daniel hot on her heels, entered the room - and the ring. Instantly, the trio froze, and Daniel, attempting to enter the ring, was thrown backwards by a surge of energy, crashing against the wall, unconscious.

~*~

"Incoming wormhole" declared Walter, as was his job.

Jack, who spent the vast majority of his time in 'gate room since all off world missions had been scrapped just in case of such an event (and also because it got him away from writing reports) said "Close the iris." if they were allies, they'd send a radio signal confirming their identities.

Walter did so - but that didn't stop an assortment of Jaffa marching out in perfect synchronization. From _behind_ the Stargate - almost as though they were coming through from the other side.

As none of the Jaffa were armed, and weren't doing anything other than clearing space for new arrivals, Jack didn't give the order to shoot them. No, he was to curious to see what they were doing.

He soon found out when an amorphous figure - with constantly shifting features, which, although they gave Jack a headache to look at, he recognized as belonging to all the Jaffa in the room.

However, his attention was somewhat more concerned with the ridiculously large scythe the figure was holding.

But even this was of secondary interest when the figure changed into, of all people, Major Samantha Carter, and pleaded - in her voice - "Don't shoot!"

~*~

Author's note: everything in the little tech talk between Willow and Sam is accurate and theoretically possible.


	9. Chapter 9

Before Jack answered (well, mainly because he wanted at least a little time to think - and, of course, because it was proper procedure), he told Walter "Go and get Hammond. And Teal'c. And as many gunman to get into the 'gateroom as possible." Whilst Walter sounded the various necessary alarms and gave the necessary orders, Jack called down over the intercom "Why shouldn't I shoot you? You hi-jacked our Stargate!"

Sam - well, fake Sam, because that couldn't really be Sam - rolled her (its?) eyes and said quite calmly, as though the threat of being shot was something she dealt with every day, "If you shoot me, I'll leave through your _astria porta_, and three innocent people, including the ex-Goa'uld whose body I am wearing, will remain in comas for the rest of what will be a very, very long life. Well, I _say_ innocent people, but one of them, not so much..."

Jack might not be the brightest member of his team, but whilst gunmen streamed into the 'gateroom and pointed weapons at the unarmed Jaffa, and Teal'c took his place firmly at his left shoulder, he was fairly certain there'd been an obvious error in what that thing had just said. But he decided to leave that little detail alone for a time, and concentrate on what was uppermost on his mind - besides the worry on behalf of Sam (and Daniel, of course - he might be one of the three that had been mentioned) that the thing's words had evoked. "Who, exactly, are you?" Jack rather suspected that it had to be Caelus, because it was colossally unlikely that they'd only just heard of him before he appeared, but there was always the chance that it was a Goa'uld trick. Although the various insignias on the foreheads of the blank-faced Jaffa made that more than a little unlikely.

The thing looked surprised that Jack would even ask such a question - it evidently had the overwhelming arrogance of a Goa'uld - and answered "I am Caelus, High Lord of the Goa'uld and a member of the Council of the Galactic Commonwealth. Although not, I suspect, anymore." he (Caelus had been a he, Jack was sure Martouf had told him that, at least) listed his titles grandly.

Jack felt better now that he had a name for the thing that looked like Sam, because, if it wasn't Sam, he had absolutely no qualms in saying "You say that if I order you shot, you'll leave. So tell me, Caelus, how exactly are you intending on leaving whilst you're riddled with bullet holes and bleeding onto the floor?"

Contempt flickered briefly over Caelus' face (eliminating all possibility that it was indeed Sam, because no matter how stupid the things Jack said might be, she never looked like that) and said "I understand that you are a primitive race-" Oh, how Jack hated hearing that! He got it enough from the Tollans - and, well, nigh on every other race they encountered that weren't oppressed by the Goa'uld. "-but I have just escaped from a prison that lies beyond the boundaries of time and space - a realm, I might add, in which such as you could not live for even a second - and yet you have the temerity to suggest that your archaic weaponry would stop me should I wish to leave? I remain here solely out of goodwill, and yet you insist on trying even that."

"Prison? What were you in prison for?" From what Martouf had told him, Caelus had actually been a good guy - not that he was actually seeing that right now - so what exactly had he done to be imprisoned? Jack was inclined to believe him about the whole shooting thing - he remembered dying engaging Apophis and some Jaffa in an ambush because Apophis had had a force field - and apparently Caelus had been a genius engineer, so it was probable that he should have an even more advanced version.

"That is my affair. I will deal with it myself." Caelus answered shortly. And didn't it just set Jack all afire with curiosity? "Now, I require the ex-Goa'uld, the one with the Alterran gene and the vampire to be brought here. Oh yes, and the man who foolishly injured himself."

Jack knew that the ex-Goa'uld was Sam, but as for the Alterran gene, he couldn't even begin to guess. And then there was the vampire... in normal circumstances, he'd disbelieve it completely, but as he was being told by a shape shifting alien with no reason to lie, he merely found it nearly impossible to even contemplate. The injured man surely had to be Daniel. Of course, none of his confusion registered on his face when he asked "Where are these people? And what do you need them for?"

Caelus stared off into the distance for several moments, before replying "Hmm, its daylight now... right, there's a sign - Crawford Street. Strange name. Near an old derelict mansion - the vampire can't leave it, not in sunlight. Does that help you find them?" the question was clearly being asked of Jack again, although the rest of it had been spoken in a curiously flat monotone.

Sam and Daniel wouldn't have left Sunnydale - well, probably not, but knowing those two anything was possible - and it was a small town, so that should be sufficient to locate them - although, by the sound of things, he'd need some kind of special vehicle to accommodate the vampire - Jack couldn't quite believe he'd just thought those words - but that still didn't answer all of his original question, and it gave rise to another one. "You didn't tell me what you needed them for. Nor how you can - do what you just did. What did you just do, anyway? See what they see?"

Jack cursed himself for the slight stammer, but Caelus didn't seem to notice. But then again, maybe he thought him such a primitive that he was like that all the time.

"I doubt that you would be able to comprehend my answer." answered Caelus, although to Jack's mind that was no answer at all. He saw some leverage here that he could use to gain information.

"If you do not tell me how you came to be imprisoned, what happened to Sam and Daniel and why you need those people here, I will not bring them to you and you will be forcibly escorted to the highest security cell I can get you into." demanded Jack. He was more than a little on edge here, and perhaps worry for Sam was clouding his judgement slightly, but this damned arrogant Goa'uld was really getting on his nerves. And besides, he wanted answers.

Anyway, Caelus and his Jaffa weren't armed, except for that enormous scythe, so although he may not be able to shoot him, he should be able to force them where he wants them to go. And Jack would like to see Hammond deal with it better. Where was the General, anyway?

"I see. I will not tell you of my imprisonment, for that is none of your concern. But, as you obviously feel some kind of bond between some of the people of which I speak, and because I do not want to sever all ties with this world, I will tell you a little of them." Jack was a little surprised that information was being so freely given - normally he had to do far more than merely threaten to get a Goa'uld to talk - and he was taken aback about the tie-severing. That implied that, unlike other Goa'uld, Caelus didn't want to enslave them or destroy their entire planet.

Caelus continued. "Every prison has locks. Of course, these locks are not to be found on the inside of the prison, because obviously that would make them too easy to pick. Such was the case of mine, although the locks were found spread throughout this galaxy, in the form of rings that are somewhat similar in design to an _astria porta_.

To open the lock, one requires three components. To have, or have had, a Goa'uld symbiote, an Alterran gene, and a vampire. Two years ago, a lock was uncovered on this planet, and was briefly activated by a vampire. Unfortunately, this vampire was insane, and vampires are the least necessary of the three components.

Nevertheless, the lock was opened sufficiently for a small fragment of my mind to escape and attach itself to the vampire, and through a process similar to hypnosis, eventually took almost complete control of her. I then used the vampire to draw a human with the Alterran gene to ring - I believe that at this time your _astria porta_ may have activated - which allowed more of my consciousness to escape, some to latch onto the Alterran and some to search for a Goa'uld, which I found.

Then it was merely a matter of time before I could get them sufficiently under my control that I could lead them to the ring and activate it fully, which allowed me to escape. Unfortunately, as an unforeseen side effect of the hypnosis, when I came through the _astria porta_, the minds of those three were completely subjugated to my own, and are now essentially nothing more than an extension of my body. Thus, just now, I did not see through their eyes, I saw through my own. They just happened to be in a different body in a different place. I need them here do that I can pull my mind from them and return them to as they were before."

Jack blinked at the tale. Parts of it made sense, others would definitely take some time to digest. But there was one thing that he wanted done now. Shutting off the intercom to 'gateroom, he turned to Walter and said "Order some cars down to Crawford Street Sunnydale, immediately. One with complete protection from the sun."

Down below, Caelus smiled.


	10. Chapter 10

After Walter hurried off to organize the cars, Jack turned back to the smiling Caelus, turning on the intercom again. He wanted more details - why were those three "components", as Caelus put it, necessary? What was an Alterran? Did vampires really exist?

"I will not answer any more questions until they have arrived." spoke Caelus, as soon as the intercom was on again. It was almost as though he'd read Jack's mind... which gave rise to a question. Jack just had to ask it, even if it went unanswered.

"Can you read my mind?" Jack queried. Caelus had mentioned hi-jacking other people's minds, so wasn't it plausible that he could read them too?

"I believe that's another question. But yes, I could. But it's terribly impolite. I prefer just to ask." answered Caelus, with a slightly amused expression - one Jack knew well from Sam's face.

Anyway, if he answered that one, maybe he'll answer this one? "Ask? But surely not everyone will want to tell you?"

"_What are you thinking, Colonel Jack O'Neill?_" demanded Caelus, eyes flaring and voice overlayed with the harmonics of a Goa'uld. It was exceedingly strange to hear Sam sounding like that.

Before Jack could stop himself, he was replying. "I'm worried about Sam, and Daniel too, of course, wondering what the Hell I'm meant to do with you and how you know my name, and what's keeping Hammond so long?" Then he blinked, surprised at the fact that he had answered the Goa'uld - worse, that he'd told the truth. He had to be thankful the other snakes didn't have something like that - although it would have saved him getting tortured a few times.

"How did you do that?" demanded Jack, but fake-Sam merely smirked and shook his head. Apparently, no more answers for Jack, not for a while at least. It should take 5 hours or so to get to Sunnydale, but he wanted the trio and Daniel driven back, which would take 20 hours, more or less - it would be faster to take a plane, of course, but there was simply no way that he was going to trust a _vampire_ of all things, _especially_ not one possessed by a Goa'uld, on a plane.

Nevertheless, if Caelus wasn't going to talk anymore, then he was going to a cell, him and his Jaffa. Jack hoped he'd cooperate - if he could get Jack to speak his mind (which, amongst co-workers, was something he frequently did, and had just as frequently got him in trouble. But he _never_ did it in front of possible hostiles) without any visible technology, he wasn't any too keen on finding what else he might be able to do.

"Caelus, you and your Jaffa will be escorted to solitary confinement cells until the people you have requested have arrived." Jack stated calmly, but watching carefully for any sign that of possible trouble. There was none - unless you counted the look as though he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. Jack knew that face well, from Sam.

The Goa'uld nodded regally, acquiescing. "Very well."

As some Airmen entered the 'gateroom, Jack called down one final order. "Oh, and Caelus, leave your weapon here." Caelus looked up at him with the wide-eyed innocent gaze that usually instantly made Jack forgive Sam's most recent prank, and shrugged as though to say "What weapon?"

Jack rolled his eyes before answering the unspoken question "Your scythe. You know, the massive bladed weapon you're holding? Leave it here." Caelus looked at it as though he hadn't even considered the possibility that it was a weapon, before negligently handing it to the nearest Airman - who staggered under the weight.

As Caelus and his Jaffa were led away - the Jaffa still eerily expressionless and in perfect step - Jack caught the amused twinkle in fake-Sam's eye, and Jack was suddenly reminded that Caelus had just broken out of a prison that was infinitely more advanced than anything any human could ever design.

Jack wondered what on Earth (or any other planet you care to name) he'd let himself in for.

~*~

Drusilla's ears, being the sharpest, heard the incoming cars first. The mind of Caelus that was currently driving the body hoped that it wasn't yet another false alarm - a surprising number of cars had passed down this near-abandoned street, and every time they passed on by. It had been hours, and none of them had moved so much as a muscle, although they were all getting very hungry. The unconscious man upstairs hadn't yet awoken, his body was fairly badly damaged.

Fortunately, these cars stopped here, and Sam and Willow heard footsteps. Drusilla, with several millennia of practice (albeit in another body, but one with similar senses) and far more acute hearing, could hear their heartbeats and could tell the footsteps were coming up the drive. The slightly accelerated heartbeat told Caelus that they weren't quite sure what they might find in there, and they weren't keen to find out.

Willow, the nearest, opened the door to spy a small group of men dressed in the same uniforms as those from the facility with the _astria porta_, one with a hand raised to knock on the door. They looked taken aback to see her, and Drusilla could tell from the change in their heartbeats and breathing that they weren't sure that this is what they came for, but seeing Sam in the background - the Airmen obviously recognized her - reassured them.

Whilst Drusilla went upstairs to pick up the unconscious man - Caelus wanted him too, and she could carry him the most easily. Besides, they were letting the sunlight in - the Airman who had been about to knock said "Good afternoon ma'am, Major Carter. We're to escort you back to the SGC. Although we were led to expect that there was a... someone else, and an injured man, as well?" Caelus wondered why he was uncomfortable about saying the word vampire. They were commonplace on this world, were they not?

Nevertheless, Willow answered "Yes. I am upstairs, bringing down the injured one. Do you have a vehicle capable of protecting me?" the man looked a little confused - no doubt at the pronoun, he may not be used to a single consciousness in many bodies - before simply nodding.

Willow and Sam made their way to the cars - one heavily blacked out, which was the one the Airmen surrounding them ushered them towards - and as the pair got in and settled, Drusilla dashed out, using the unconscious body - the feedback from opening the lock must have damaged the man more than Caelus would've expected, if he was still unconscious - as a shield from the sun, and quickly slid into the car and closed the door.

Drusilla escaped with no more than a mild scalding, she hadn't even burst into flame. Now it was only a matter of time before these bodies were brought to the central body, and Caelus could withdraw his mind from them - and, of course, scan their memories as well. He wished to know more of this world.


	11. Chapter 11

It had been a long drive. A very, very long drive. Willow, Drusilla and Sam were extremely hungry and tired, and even the Airmen were fidgety - and they'd eaten and changed shifts often enough. Only Daniel didn't seem to mind, and that was because, incredibly enough, he was still unconscious.

Of course, the Airmen had offered the trio of women food - well, they'd offered Sam food, but one of the other two was supposed to be a vampire, and they didn't want to get any closer to her than was strictly necessary - but after spending untold aeons in a prison where the laws of physics (and biology) didn't apply, Caelus had kind of forgotten how to eat. Not that that was much of a problem for him anymore, because he no longer needed to. But he did miss it, occasionally.

Nevertheless, no matter how long a drive might be, it will always end at some point, and this one was no exception. They arrived at the SGC, and we're escorted to the infirmary - besides the obviously injured Daniel, who could tell what side-effects Goa'uld possession might have? - and a messenger was sent to tell Jack that they had arrived.

~*~

Jack was not a happy man. As he walked down to Caelus' cell, accompanied by Teal'c, who refused to let the Goa'uld roam around without him nearby, Jack was thinking about what he'd do to Hammond when he got back. It turned out the General was in a meeting in D.C, and as the base was on lockdown, Jack was reluctantly placed in charge.

Which was something he was uncomfortable with. Sure, if Jack thought Hammond was making a mistake, he'd be the first to say so, but making the decision in the first place wasn't something he'd ever liked doing.

As soon as Jack opened the door of the cell, Caelus was already out and heading down the corridor, as though he'd known the exact moment Jack would open the door. Perhaps he had - he simply didn't know the capabilities of this strange alien - and that didn't sit well with Jack.

Of course, thanks to Teal'c, Caelus didn't get very far. The big Jaffa simply stuck his arm out in a move that had previously stopped many the escaping prisoner, and Caelus came to a stop so sudden that Jack expected to hear the squeal of brakes.

Caelus turned to Jack, raising an eyebrow quizzically (Jack vaguely wondered why he still looked like Sam. Or why he wanted to look like Sam in first place.) and asked "Are you not here to escort me to the infirmary?". For brief moment, Jack was going to ask how he knew, until he remembered that he could apparently see through the eyes of the three women that had been brought in.

Therefore, Jack didn't find it especially necessary to answer. Taking a leaf out of Teal'c's book, he remained silent, marching Caelus to the infirmary sandwiched between himself and Teal'c. Fortunately, he didn't make any protest - although, given that Caelus had requested (well, demanded) this, Jack didn't see why he would.

When they made it to the infirmary, Jack was unsurprised to see that Dr Frasier had hooked up the three women to some medical scanning stuff - he knew it well, from the many, many times he'd been in the exact same situation - and that Daniel had a leg in a cast, a bandaged chest and a drip attached to an arm. Nor was he surprised to see that Janet was peering at the readouts, brow furrowed in confusion at whatever the beeping lines showed. Jack had expected there to be something unusual about the three.

However, Jack hadn't expected Caelus to sidle up to him and ask "What is the short woman doing?". The sheer incongruity of the statement made him snort with amusement before he got a hold of himself.

"Dr Frasier is examining the patients to see if there is anything out of the ordinary. It's perfectly normal procedure." Jack found himself answering before wondering why he had. There wasn't any harm in that question, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be in the future.

Caelus glanced at the machines. "Oh. I'm sorry your machines are not functioning correctly."

Janet, who had hitherto seemed oblivious to the discussion, whipped around to stare at him. "How did you know that?" she asked urgently, a split second before Jack was about to.

"They are emitting a low level electromagnetic field that would interfere with devices of that nature. It is quite unintentional, I assure you, but sadly unavoidable. However, once I withdraw my mind from them their field will normalize. Then you may follow your perfectly normal procedure." Caelus stated blithely, staring at Daniel curiously.

However, Jack had had enough of this. With a thinly veiled threat of violence colouring his voice, he said "Well, you'd better hurry up and get on with it then, hadn't you?"

Caelus looked at him, apparently surprised by his tone, before stepping up to the redhead, who sat up. As she did so, Caelus form wavered for a moment before becoming an exact duplicate of the young woman in front of him, and he placed his hands on either side of his head.

To the other people in the room, that was all that seemed to happen. To Caelus, however, it was far more significant. He began pulling both the part of his mind that was running this body, and the memories of the body itself - Willow, he found it to be called - into himself. She would be unharmed by the process - indeed, she shouldn't even remembered it occurred - but through it, Caelus would learn more of this planet.

For a large part, the memories were useless, irrelevant save for cultural interest. Until a few years ago, when Willow met a young woman named Buffy, and found that she was living on a Hellmouth. And that interested Caelus. Particularly the last detail.

Of course, Caelus was far more advanced than the primitives who named it such, and he saw a purpose for all the destructive energy housed therein.

But first, he must finish what he was doing here. Caelus stepped back, and Willow fell backwards onto the pallet on which she lay. Jack, alarmed that he might have harmed the young woman, and anxious to save Sam from such a fate, pulled his pistol from his holster and levelled it at Caelus. "What did you do to her?" he snarled.

"Exactly as I said I would. She is merely exhausted - she has not slept for many hours - and she is also extremely hungry. When she awakes, she will desperately crave sustenance." he answered, deliberately withholding information that these archaic people would never understand. Why, the existence of vampires wasn't even common knowledge on this planet!

"He's right, Colonel" said the little doctor, looking at the readouts of their primitive machines. "Heart-rate is normal, blood pressure normal, brainwaves normal. She's asleep."

Reluctantly, Jack gestured at Caelus to carry on, and the Goa'uld was only too pleased to do so. The only thing that Caelus found in Sam's memories were remnants from when she played host to Jolinar. That was useful, as it showed him what had happened whilst he'd been imprisoned and allowed him to create a more complete picture of events.

There was nothing if interest in Drusilla's memories - just a century to so of violence that turned Caelus' stomach. Unlike the other Goa'uld, he'd never always tried bloodshed or violence. He only killed when there was no other choice.

Mainly because Caelus was afraid he'd enjoy it too much, and wouldn't be able to stop once he began.

However, Drusilla, being a vampire, and an insane hungry one at that, didn't succumb to exhaustion as the other two had done. No, driven crazier by hunger and rage at her possession, her face shifted into her demonic one and she flew at Janet, hands gripping her tightly as she lowered her mouth to her neck.

"_Stop._" stated Caelus, with the voice of a Goa'uld. And, to Jack's eternal surprise, the vampire (he guessed, after seeing its yellow eyes and fanged face, that he couldn't really call it anything else) did so. It didn't move a muscle, didn't blink, didn't even breathe.

Caelus turned to Jack. "Colonel, you do not have the facilities nor the expertise to deal with a vampire. May I suggest that you let her go?"

Jack looked at the duplicate of the vampire's human face as though he had gone crazy. Perhaps he had - perhaps he wasn't all that sane to begin with. And Jack felt no qualms in saying so. "Are you crazy? If we let her - it - go, it'll just kill someone else! No, we should study the thing, or kill it, but letting it go, that's madness."

Caelus answered, quite calmly "At the moment, I am holding her back via hypnosis. It may not last long, and then your doctor will die. Furthermore, if you do not release her, then I will let your Daniel Jackson die."

Jack blinked, processing the statement. Daniel had a broken leg and what looked like a couple of broken ribs at least, and probably a concussion, knowing Daniel. Who had ever died from that? Speaking with the deadly calm that usually preceded him killing someone or blowing something up - sometimes both - Jack said "Explain to me, in simple terms that my primitive brain will understand, why Daniel is going to die?"

"He was caught in the energy blast when the lock opened. Currently he is dying of radiation poisoning. He will not wake up. However, you have a Goa'uld healing device, yes? Unfortunately, none of you can operate it. I can - and will - if you release the vampire."

Well, put like that... Jack didn't seem to have a choice. He signalled the two Airmen outside to escort the vampire to the surface, and despite their obvious discomfort at the order, did so. He ordered a third Airman to collect the healing device from storage - he was glad it hadn't been sent off to area 51.

Minutes later, the healing device was brought to Caelus, who flipped it over, opened a hatch of some kind and did something to it, all before anyone had a chance to move.

A high frequency sound of some kind emerged from it, and instantly everyone in the room fell to ground, unconscious - save for Caelus. It was the work of moments to reroute the intercom so that everyone on the base was unconscious also.

Several hours later, they awoke to find that Caelus and all his Jaffa had escaped.


	12. Chapter 12

Jack awoke with a groan, wondering why his bed was so uncomfortable. Normally, it was comfortable enough to tempt him to stay in bed - not that he ever did, he was normally far too busy saving the world to be a layabout - but now it felt like Jack had fallen asleep on the floor. He was better acquainted with this feeling than he had ever wanted to be, due to various Airforce postings that had gone horribly wrong.

"You're awake! I was wondering why everyone decided to take a nap on the floor, when there are all these slightly less uncomfortable pallets nearby." said Daniel, far too cheerily for Jack's liking - especially seeing as how he remembered why he was on the floor.

However, his annoyance was tempered somewhat by the realization that it was Daniel who spoke. Daniel, who Caelus had told him would never wake up. But then, Caelus had no reason to tell the truth. However, he had removed his brain from Sam and the other two (although that was his fault in the first place) and saved Janet...

Jack tried to wake the nearest Airman, but failed. So Jack went to go and check on Caelus' Jaffa, although he suspected that they'd be long gone. Then he was going to go over the security tapes and find out exactly what had happened here.

Daniel yelled after him "I'm fine by the way! Besides, you know, a broken leg, and some injured ribs." Jack shook his head, smiling ruefully to himself. He'd known Daniel was alright as soon as he'd spoken, and he didn't have the time right now to sit around talking to him. Why did Hammond have to have picked now of all times to go to D.C?

~*~

Daniel settled down to a long lie down - who knew how long it would be before Janet woke up or someone came to check on him? He wished Jack would've stayed to explain what was going on, why Sam and that pretty redhead Willow were lying unconscious in what was definitely the SGC (how had he gotten here anyway?) and just generally answer whatever questions Daniel might have.

Fortunately, it looked like he might be getting some answers soon enough, because it seemed as though Willow was starting to stir. Daniel lay there for a few moments, watching her shift around, before her bright green eyes half opened, hooded by heavy eyelids. Daniel was well acquainted with that look - he'd seen it in the mirror after working all night. She was exhausted.

Which was odd, because he'd felt much like she looked when he'd awoken a few minutes ago, but now he felt like he'd had a full night sleep - admittedly one in which he'd broken a few bones, judging by the cast and bandages.

Anyway, Daniel decided to take it gently. He knew from experience how difficult mornings were - speaking of which, where was his coffee? - and started with a softly spoken "Hey."

It took a moment for her to respond, and when she did so, Daniel winced at how harsh her voice sounded. Rough night. "Hi. Where am I?"

Well, she certainly cut right to the chase. Problem was, Daniel didn't know what he'd be allowed to tell her, or what she already knew. She couldn't have signed a NDA whilst she was unconscious, so it was unlikely that anyone had told her anything, but it was important that he found out what she'd found out. He didn't want to make the Stargate public. "What do you remember?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't pick up on his obvious evasion.

Willow didn't show any signs of doing so - which meant less than he might hope, given that she looked rather more than half asleep - but on the upside, her voice was less harsh. "Drusilla was leading me to the old abandoned mansion - I felt compelled to follow her, I don't know why - into this old ring thing, covered with runes. We stood there, and a couple of seconds later that physics lecturer, Dr Carter, came rushing in - I don't know why she did that, either - and then, nothing. I woke up here."

So Willow remembered no more than Daniel did, and she hadn't seen anything that sounded particularly alien-like. Except that "ring thing" she'd described (although the description sounded, if possible, even more infantile than what Jack would've said. But then, Daniel reminded himself, she was only a young woman, probably not even past her majority yet) Nevertheless, that was the only lead he had, until someone came to talk to him, or Janet woke up. However, given that she was now snoring lightly, that seemed a far off prospect.

"Can you describe the runes you saw?" Daniel asked curiously. If she could - better yet, if she could remember some - he might be able to translate them, find out the devices purpose, or at least which alien built it. His money was on the Goa'uld, he didn't think that the Asgard would make a mind-control machine (or whatever it was) and just leave it around.

"Sure." Willow answered, voice now normal and eyes open, exposing their brilliant verdant hue for all to see. She looked around, presumably for a paper and pen, smiling faintly when she saw one next to her bed. Daniel couldn't resist smiling back, even though she was now engrossed in her rapid sketching.

When she'd finished and passed the pad over to Daniel, he gasped in surprise. He recognized those symbols. And they weren't Goa'uld. Or Asgard. Or any of the advanced human races the SGC had come in contact with.

No, those angular, blocky symbols belonged to the Ancients.

~*~

Jack had watched the security footage three times now, and no matter how much he wanted it to change, it still hadn't.

He watched as, at the exact same moment Caelus did something to the Goa'uld healing device, every Jaffa in their solitary cells, without any appearance of communicating with each other, had gotten up and fiddled with the security camera - the only object in the room - somehow causing the doors to slide open.

He watched as they marched, perfectly synchronized, to the 'gateroom, taking care not to step on the unconscious Airmen littering the floor.

He watched as Caelus imperiously held out his hand, and his over-sized scythe came flying from the other end of the room and settle perfectly into his palm.

He watched as the 'gate started up all by itself, instantly establishing a wormhole without any address being dialled, without Caelus even doing anything.

He watched as Caelus, wearing Sam's body again, looked directly at the security camera with an insolent smile, saluting, before walking calmly through the wormhole, the Jaffa tramping after him.

Jack could've lived with that - with an iris, Caelus would never be getting back, and Jack was more than happy about that. What really got his blood pumping was the 'gate address Caelus had gone to - and the message he'd left.

Because it hadn't been a 'gate address. It had been a set of coordinates. On Earth. And every time Jack checked where those coordinates were, he came up with the same answer. Sunnydale. And he saw the same message, flashing away at him on the screen.

_Coming?_

So, Caelus was still on Earth, although why he'd want to go to a backwater town like Sunnydale was beyond Jack. But, whatever he was doing, Jack was sure he'd need to stop it. Which meant he needed his team back.

~*~

"Will someone please tell me why I'm lying here and no one has brought me any food?" asked Sam, without opening her eyes. She saw no reason to do so, she knew what she'd see - the infirmary at the SGC, she could tell by the bed. Was it bad that Sam had been here so many times she knew where she was merely by the bed?

"Thanks, Dr Carter. I was trying to ignore that." said a voice, rather sarcastically. One which had no reason to be at the SGC - well, at least, not until Sam got around to recruiting her. Sam's eyes popped open to make sure if she was right about the owner of the voice.

She was.

"Sorry, Dr Carter, that came out a little harsher than I meant it to. I tend to get grouchy when I haven't eaten." apologized Willow, looking across at Sam from the next bed over.

"Don't worry about it, Willow, Sam's plenty grouchy when she doesn't get her blue jello." said Daniel, who, unlike Sam and Willow, was bandaged up. Sam knew that was payback for teasing him earlier, and she gave him her death glare. Daniel took his usual way out and pretended to study the piece of paper in front of him. How did he manage to have notes even here?

Unfortunately, even the briefest and least funny of jokes must soon give way to a serious talk. Such was the case now, as a thunderously scowling Jack stalked in. Normally, Sam would've stood, but, well, the bed was too darned comfortable. Which was far from the normal state of affairs. Sam must be really tired. Besides, Jack wasn't much of a stickler for such things.

"Umm, Jack?" broke in Daniel, before Jack had a chance to start on the tirade he was evidently working on. Sam inwardly backed away - she suspected that Daniel might just be about to have his head bitten off.

"Daniel?" replied Jack, in his dangerously calm tone. Sam tried to catch Daniel's eye, to convince him not to say anymore before Jack lost it completely, but Daniel, being Daniel, didn't notice.

"D'you think we might have some food? And could you tell us what's going on, before you launch into the vastly incoherent monologue I can tell you are just dying to give?" Jack glared at him for so long that even Daniel quailed, before giving in and going to get some food, grumbling all the while

Normally, he'd send some Airman or other to fetch it, but they all seemed asleep, and no matter how many times he tried to wake them, they all stayed asleep. The only people who seemed to be awake on the entire base were him, Daniel, Sam, the redhead and Teal'c. Which was strange, seeing as how they'd been at the epicentre of the knockout frequency...

~*~

"So..." mumbled Willow through a mouthful of food. Who knew that anyone could ever be so hungry? "... aliens exist, they come through a stable wormhole from other planets, or in big ships, and one of them, a bad one, is in Sunnydale?"

"That's pretty much it." said Jack, grudgingly. He hadn't seen that there was any choice but to bring Willow in on the big secret - especially when Sam had slipped him a note saying she was Carter-type genius.

"Are you sure they're not demons, or something? 'cause I've known some pretty strange demons... oops." Willow tried to cover herself up as she realised she'd just given away the big "Demons exist" secret. Although, they had let her in on the big "Aliens exist" secret...

"Demons." stated Jack flatly, with just a hint of incredulity.

"What? You had a crazy vampire around a couple of hours ago, you deal with aliens on a daily basis, and you're hung up on vampires and magic?" Willow defended herself. Then "Oops. There goes the big "Magic exists" secret."

"Magic? Really? Can you do it? Can you show us some?" said Daniel excitedly, with big puppy dog eyes. Sam nearly choked on her jello seeing that.

Willow hesitated - she wasn't much good at magic, half the time her spells didn't work and the rest of the time they went horribly wrong - but she wanted to show Daniel_something_ - and the others too, of course - so she went for a simple spell, one Giles had taught her, and one of the few that reliably worked.

With a hand gesture (the spell didn't work without that, not even Giles knew why), Willow said "_Nox_." and the light above her stuttered and went out. Sam choked on her jello again, and the two men were speechless. Alien technology they could deal with - magic, not so much.

Then, something occurred to Daniel. That was Latin. Caelus, before he'd escaped, had spoken Latin through Sam. Jack had told him that Caelus had said, to open the lock of his prison, he'd needed a vampire, a Goa'uld, and someone with an Alterran gene. Latin was the language of the Ancients, who, coincidentally, built the lock (at least judging by the writing on it) and had powers (perhaps one might call them magical).

This all led him to one conclusion. Willow, like Jack, had the Ancient gene. However, that wasn't all. By all accounts, Caelus was different from any Goa'uld the team had ever met. He had technology far more advanced than the Goa'uld. And the Ancients had perhaps had the most advanced technology in the galaxy.

Therefore, logically, Caelus was an an Ancient with a Goa'uld symbiote.


	13. Chapter 13

"Willow's an Ancient." Daniel blurted out. Strangely, that was what struck him most of what he had just figured out. Of course, he knew she wasn't, she just had the Ancient gene (which, apparently had originally been Alterran. He supposed that they couldn't always have been called the Ancients) like Jack, but she must be far closer to ascending than Jack if she could do things like that. He wondered if Jack could do magic.

"Hey! Who're you calling ancient, I'm only 18." replied Willow indignantly, as Jack and Sam - and Teal'c, who'd just come in, presumably after touring the base - looked at him incredulously (well, Teal'c didn't, he just looked).

"Yes, yes, I'm far too old for you. But that's not what I was talking about. The Stargate Jack told you about, it was built by a race we call the Ancients, who millennia ago ascended to an entirely different plane of existence. The symbols you showed me, for the lock, are the same as those on the Stargate..." Daniel explained his theory about Caelus being a pre-ascended Ancient with a Snake. After he had done so, he noticed that Willow was blushing furiously, whilst Sam was looking mournfully at the empty pot of blue jello, as though she wished there was more of it that she could choke on.

"Daniel, you have no idea what you just said, do you?" asked Jack, eyes twinkling.

"Umm... Willow's got the Ancient gene, like you, and Caelus is a pre-ascended Ancient with a symbiote?" Daniel answered, slightly confused by the direction this conversation was taking.

"Doctor Jackson, I believe you just told the young female that you were too old for her." Teal'c answered Daniel's unasked question straight faced - and Jack cracked up, and Willow hid under her blanket, thus missing the incredible crimson hue Daniel's face turned.

However, Sam, who might enjoy watching Daniel squirm as much as the next person, thought it was about time they settled down to business. "Right, so Caelus is in Sunnydale, no doubt doing something bad. Willow, do you have any idea what he might do there?" Sam asked the native.

Willow poked her head out of the blankets, and was immensely gratified to see that Daniel was glowing a red that was equal to her own. "Well there's a Hellmouth..." she only got that far before Jack broke in.

"Hell has a mouth? What else does it have? Helleyes? No, scratch that - what does Hell eat?" Willow thought he might just not believe her. She probably wouldn't herself, if she hadn't seen the tentacled creature that came out of it when the Master had opened it.

However, Daniel came to her defence, throwing a pencil at Jack that bounced off his head (he'd have preferred to elbow him, but he was too far away and he wasn't exactly mobile at the moment.) and said "Hey, give the girl a break, she just did some magic, you should at least try to believe her!"

Willow ignored him - both of them, she didn't know how to deal with Daniel just yet, so she thought she'd go with the standard way of not doing so - and went on to explain that a Hellmouth was much like a Stargate, except that it didn't lead to other planets, but quite literally to Hell.

"So, if he opens the Hellmouth..." Sam started, but didn't finish. It would clearly be bad.

"Yeah, looks as though apocalypse season is a little early this year." Willow concludes. "Well, anyway, I think we should bring the rest of the Scoobies in on this."

"Scoobies?" asked Teal'c with one eyebrow raised inquisitively. Willow knew he was an alien, Jack had told her, but even if he hadn't, and she hadn't seen the golden mark on his forehead, she'd have known he wasn't human, because she'd met demons who were more human than he was. Teal'c was just so... stoic.

"Yeah, you know, Scooby Doo, the television programme? It's a cartoon, the Scooby gang finds clues and stops criminals pretending to be supernatural creatures from getting away with things. I have a gang - well, it's not my gang, and it's a gang of friends, not like a street-gang or anything - that does the same kind of stuff, except they really _are_ supernatural creatures." Willow babbled.

Both Sam and Daniel were clearly trying not to laugh, and Jack was nodding sagely. "Indeed. I am most fond of the programme of which you speak." replied Teal'c, and Willow wasn't sure whether he was joking or not. Regardless, it was enough to send the others into gales of laughter.

Jack recovered first. "Right. Where would we go to find these Scoobies?" Sam giggled.

"Well, Buffy and I share a dorm - heck, she'll be worried stiff, I've been gone for a day! I need to call her." Willow fretted.

"That might be a problem. I've already tried to call D.C to inform them of the situation, but I can't get any signal. I can't even send an email. I'm assuming that Caelus is blocking us somehow, making it so that the only possibility we have is to follow him. Speaking of which, Major, do you think you could make it so that the 'gate can go through to the coordinates in Sunnydale?" answers Jack, as he took command.

Sam swung herself out of bed, already heading to the 'gateroom as she called over her shoulder "Yes sir!' if she could figure out how to do what Caelus had done, she could bypass 'gates on other planets entirely. Think of the possibilities!

Jack turned to Teal'c. "As for us, I think we'd better civilian up!" he joked.

"Indeed."

Before they left, Daniel said "Hey, what about me? I want to go to!" he might've sounded like a petulant child, but he was tired of being left out of the loop.

Jack chuckled, and patted him on the chest. "If you can walk to the 'gateroom, you can come." and then he left with Teal'c.

Daniel looked down at his chest. Something about what had just happened was niggling away at him, but he couldn't quite figure out what - then it hit him. He had a bandaged chest, he was supposed to have broken ribs. Yet that hadn't hurt. He tore off his shirt and bandages, looking at his unblemished chest - not noticing that Willow did too, for perhaps a second longer than she should have. Caelus, for some inexplicable reason, had healed him after all. He could go!

~*~

"We can't go." said Sam sadly. They were in the 'gateroom, and she'd tried for the past half-hour to figure out what Caelus had done, but it was beyond her. And that taunting, flashing message didn't help. Willow had taken a brief look at it, and she was just as baffled.

"Never mind, we'll just have to take a plane." said Daniel, trying to mollify Sam. She always took it hard when she couldn't do something. And of course, the delay could be exactly what Caelus wanted.

~*~

Five hours after that, their plane touched down in LA. Another three after that and they were in Sunnydale.

Willow suggested that they pop by Giles', because, as she'd been missing for about 2 days now, he might be holding a council of war. By now, the team was well-acquainted with the members of the Scooby Gang - Willow had had eight hours to tell them about them.

His door was open, which wasn't surprising. Pretty much the only criminals in Sunnydale couldn't enter uninvited, and demons weren't big on house-breaking. They preferred murder. In dark alleyways.

Willow went in first, to pave the way. She didn't want anyone accidentally getting staked or shot. But instantly being enveloped in a massive group hug, with even Giles participating, she could live with that. Well, until she ran out of oxygen.

Fortunately, they withdrew before she suffocated, and she was soon swamped with questions. She answered them all (they were pretty much all the same "Where have you been?" "Are you alright?") with a simple "I've got some friends outside, do you mind if I bring them in? They'll be able to explain better than I ever could."


	14. Chapter 14

Buffy never was one to be silent. She didn't want to hear from others, people she'd never met, where her best friend had been for the last couple of days. No, she wanted to hear it from Willow, and she was trying her utmost to arrange it.

And normally, Willow would. She was a shy girl, and generally automatically fell in with whatever Buffy might suggest - she remembered when Willow had been the only one to side with her over Ted-the-creepy-robot, even though she was drugged by his cookies - so Buffy was surprised when Willow utterly ignored her and went to the door, murmuring for them to come in.

However, that surprise was as nothing compared to the surprise she felt when she actually recognized two of the four people who came in. Those two visiting professors were the last people she would expect to be involved in - well, Buffy didn't know what they were involved in, but whatever it was, she hadn't expected them to be.

Willow introduced them, gesturing to each in turn. "Guys, this is Dr Samantha Carter, or Sam. Or Major Carter. Dr Daniel Jackson, Colonel Jack O'Neill, and last but not least, Teal'c."

"Just Teal'c?" queried Xander, eyeing the large hatted man, who lowered his head in acknowledgement.

"Just Teal'c. It's a long story." answered Willow, before continuing "Guys - umm, other guys - this is Buffy, the man ferociously polishing his glasses is Giles, the other man staring at Teal'c is Xander, and the woman practically sitting on his lap is his girlfriend Anya. Oh, and the peroxide blond roped to the chair is Spike, who I'm sure you remember me telling you about."

Sam had noticed Spike a little before Willow had mentioned him - she remembered what Willow had told her on the journey here, that he was a dangerous vampire with a chip in his head stopping him from hurting people - mainly because he seemed to be having staring problems. Staring at her, that is. She sighed inwardly - so far, she had, through no fault of her own, induced a Tok'ra, a Tollan and an Ancient to fall in love with her, and it seemed as though a vampire was the next on this list.

Although, she had to say, he was easier on the eyes than the others had been.

But Buffy, who'd managed to be silent throughout the introductions, simply couldn't hold it in any longer. "Told them about Spike? Why would you do that? Who are you people, anyway, and why did you kidnap Willow?" she couldn't believe that Willow would reveal the supernatural to total strangers, so something weird must be going in here, and she _would_ find out what.

"Hey, we didn't kidnap Willow! Someone else did that, and Sam, and - someone else - and ordered that we bring them to Cheyenne -" Daniel began hotly, before Willow cut him off.

"People, can we not go throwing accusations here? Buffy, these people didn't kidnap me. Now, before you start with the questions, which I just know you're going to do, I'm going to ask Sam here to explain exactly what these people do. Sam, if you would. Although if you could keep down the technical descriptions, that would be great."

And Sam did. She explained all about the Stargate, the Goa'uld, Teal'c, Ancients and the Jaffa. She explained where Willow had been and what had happened to her, about the lock they'd both been hypnotized into opening, and the threat to this world - this galaxy - that they'd unwittingly released.

By the end, even Buffy was silenced, as well she might be. It was a lot to take in, that not only did the supernatural exist, but stuff that belonged in a science-fiction programme.

Xander recovered first. "So aliens, huh?" There was nothing else he could really say.

"There are many mentions of beings similar to these - Goa'uld - you mention, in countless mythologies around the world, but I had always dismissed them as some species of demon, or perhaps magic-users." said Giles thoughtfully. Now that he thought about it, this new explanation made sense - the amount of power necessary to rip a portal through to other places, like this Stargate does, through magic would be phenomenal. But to do it repeatedly...

"I had similar thoughts when I first found out about the programme - I thought that many myths of gods and giants were in fact aliens" responded Daniel. When Willow had first mentioned Giles to him, he'd looked forward to conversations with a person of similar interests and learning to him, and it looked like it would be everything he had hoped for.

Buffy, however, had had enough of this talk. She was a girl of action, and she knew that Giles was bad enough by himself - who knew how long things might take if there were two of him to talk? She decided to take these people at face-value - she had no choice, really. As Defender of the Hellmouth, she had to stop evil doers from using it for their own ends, be they human, demon, vampire or alien. "Right, yes, this is all very well and good, but shouldn't we go and stop Carlos already?"

"It's Caelus, and it's not that easy-" began Daniel, before getting cut off, again, but this time by Spike, of all people.

"Bollocks to that, of course it is. We just pop round to the Hellmouth and slay the bugger." Sam wondered why Willow hadn't mentioned the accent before.

Buffy, of course, was having none of that. Even if that was exactly what she'd been thinking. "Firstly, Spike, there is no we. Secondly, Mr I-had-a-plan-but-I-got-bored, we - argh, everyone but you needs to figure out what we're going to do-" but then she too was cut off. There seemed to be a whole lot of that going around.

However, this was the most unlikely of sources. "Squabbling, squabbling, while the sky falls, destruction raining down upon everyone. So hot, the fires below, permeating through everything, wiping them all out. And the sky will stand there, laughing, as all below him burns." sang Drusilla in her throaty, rich voice.

Everyone was silent for a moment, but just as suddenly everyone was talking again, mainly in the theme of "How did she get here, she should be in Colorado! What's she doing in my house? Who invited the crazy woman?" and, from Anya "Who's she?"

Then Drusilla's voice cut through the babble "Are you just going to sit here? He's going to put the stars out, one by one!". And then she was gone.

Jack and Buffy both spoke the same words at the same time. "I guess that means we should get going then."


	15. Chapter 15

"Are you kidding? We can't just go off to face no one knows what just because Mistress Crazy spouts some drivel which seems to mean we should!" cried Xander.

"Dru's a psychic, remember? If she says this Caelus is up to something, I'd think it safe to assume he is." remarked Spike, obviously trying not to insult the other man.

"A psychic, really? I thought she was just crazy. How does it work?" asked the ever-interested Daniel.

"Now's really not the time." answered Willow, putting her hand on his arm. Buffy's eyebrows shot up at that.

"No, I guess not." he answered sadly.

"Anyway, it's our job to stop aliens from destroying Earth, and it's your job to stop people opening the Hellmouth. Caelus has been here for hours already, so we really need to hurry up and stop him, before he destroys the world - or the stars, or whatever Mistress Crazy was on about." said Jack. He got a quick grin from Xander for using his new nickname for Drusilla.

"I agree." said Buffy, a little put out she hadn't had a chance to say it first. "Everyone who wants to help save the world, raise your hand."

All of SG-1 raised their hands, as did Willow. Xander tried to, but Anya pulled it back down and surprised him with a kiss to stop him putting it up again. Buffy, of course, put up hers.

"I don't feel I'd be much use on an expedition such as this." said Giles, and Buffy nodded understandingly. No need to put Research-Guy in the front lines. Although Daniel, seemingly Giles' counterpart, looked like he'd do just fine in a combat situation.

"Speak for yourself, you ponce! I want to come, I'm just having trouble with the hand raising. I want to kill aliens." said an excited Spike, trying to escape his ropes.

"You can't even kill humans, and there's no way-" began Buffy before Sam interrupted her.

"Why can't we bring him along? He can't hurt us, but it's possible he could hurt Jaffa, and we need all the help we can get. Anyway, it's his planet too. Willow told me he helped save it before."

"Thank you! I never get any credit for that, no, everyone was all "Boo-hoo, Peaches has been sent to hell." but no one remembered that I helped stop everyone else from going there too." Spike responded with just a hint of bitterness.

Buffy looked surprised that anyone would stand up for Spike, but she seemed to see the logic in what Sam was saying, because she nodded once, sharply, in agreement.

She turned to Xander, to see why he hadn't done anything, and went right on turning. Anya with her tongue down his throat was not something she ever wanted to see - even though Anya's strange social sense meant she'd already seen it far more than she ever wanted to. Which was never.

"I'm assuming you have weapons and things?" Buffy asked SG-1 vaguely as she headed for the weapon cabinet - there was one in pretty much every room in Giles' house, and pulled out a sword and a crossbow. She already had Mr Pointy secreted about her person.

"Our armaments are located in the car." stated Teal'c in his deep voice.

Buffy offered Willow a long knife - which she was somewhat reluctant on doing, she knew how clumsy her friend could be - but to her surprise, Willow turned it down, saying "No, I've already got a weapon, Jack got me this thing called a Zat, apparently you just point and shoot. It doesn't even kill on the first shot."

Buffy shrugged, using the knife to slash through Spike's ropes, who then bounced up like a jack-in-the-box, before darting over to the weapons and heaving a large double-headed battle axe - no one even knew where Giles got these things - one-handed. Buffy was about to take it off him, but then she thought he wouldn't be any good without a weapon, so he might as well take that one.

So, at last, it looked like the group was ready to go. And go they did, right to the car parked outside, to get the rest of the weapons. Willow, Sam, Jack and Daniel took the same, strange-looking weapon they called a Zat, and Teal'c got his staff weapon.

Unfortunately, there was simply no way all of them were going to fit into that car, so they had to walk. Fortunately, in Sunnydale, nothing was more than a couple of minutes away, and the remains of Sunnydale High were no exception.

Drusilla was standing outside it, apparently waiting for them, leaning on an ornate weapon similar to Teal'c's staff weapon, but of a more bluish hue, and with a metal spike on one end and without the paddle on the other.

Spike called out to her "Where'd you get the weapon, love?" and Sam felt an irrational burst of jealousy as she remembered Willow telling her that Drusilla and Spike had been lovers for about a century. Which was odd, given that she had known Spike for all of five minutes and had barely spoken to him.

But Drusilla ignored him, saying instead "We can't get in. The volcano bubbles from beneath, burning away the air, so hot, so hot. We can't get in, and the star people will vanish like they've never been."

Buffy, however, was never one to put up with cryptic nonsense, and so she made her way to the school doors, throwing them open, before reeling backwards as a fountain of steam burst forth. Seemed as though Drusilla had been speaking some sense for once.

Fortunately, her Slayer reflexes were good enough for Buffy to escape the worst of it, merely getting mildly scalded. Unfortunately, that still meant that there was no way in.

"Guys, you might want to come over here!" shouted Willow, who had ambled over to the car park. The gang trotted over, to see dozens of cars (belonging to the parents who had died on Graduation Day) sitting there, gutted. No one came here, not even vampires, which meant Caelus must've raided them for parts, for whatever he was building.

Which, the gang found as they walked further into the car park, was apparently a glass cube filled with a tangle of wires and some water. Now, Buffy was no scientist - and apparently Caelus had mastered a technology more advanced than any even Sam could contemplate, and she _was_ a scientist - but she had a sneaking suspicion that this device might be responsible for the steam blocking their way in.

Sam bent down and peered at it. "The water in that should be boiling, but it isn't. So-"

"It must be some kind of resonating device. Instead of the water in the box boiling, the water in the air is!" finished Willow.

"Right." said Spike, lifting the axe in preparation to smash the box.

"No! If you smash it, you could be electrocuted, or worse! No, we need to diffuse it safely..." said Sam, still intently examine the device. Which begged the question how had she known what Spike was going to do?

However, the box wasn't a problem for much longer, because Teal'c levelled his staff weapon at it and fired. The box fizzled and cracked, water spilling everywhere and the wires destroyed.

"...or we could do that." Sam conceded. At least now it looked as though the path to the Hellmouth was open. They went back to the doors, and Buffy cautiously threw them open. This time, there was no eruption of steam, and the gang let out their collected breaths that they didn't know they'd been holding - well, the members who needed to breathe, that is.

The group crossed the threshold, and as soon as they had done so, Jack, Willow, Sam and Spike froze in their tracks. Teal'c looked them curiously (for Teal'c) and Buffy waved her hand in front of their faces, but got no response.

The pair spun around when they heard a noise behind them, to see Drusilla change into a constantly-morphing figure, and her weapon into an enormous scythe.

"Check-" Caelus began, in a voice that changed as much as his appearance, but he got no further than that.

Because Buffy ran him through.


	16. Chapter 16

Caelus' eyes glowed for a moment, then the sword began to glow too. Buffy could feel it slowly heat up, the temperature building. She tried to let go of the hilt, but found that she could not. The heat reached an uncomfortable level, then quickly passed beyond that.

Teal'c shot at Caelus (with a Zat, Daniel couldn't without the discharge hitting Buffy as well.) but the shot swerved wide, orbiting around him like a planet around a star. Which should be impossible - the plasma of a staff weapon blast could not change course, and couldn't emit energy for as long as it was doing so.

But then, Caelus didn't seem much for the laws of physics. Fortunately, the brief distraction afforded by the shot was enough to temporarily distract him and allow Buffy enough time to pull away, moments before the sword flashed into steam, leaving behind no wound - not even a hole in constantly changing clothing.

Teal'c and Daniel both shot at him several more times, to no effect. Then Caelus got bored, and waved a hand. The trio went flying backwards, slamming into a wall (as he did so, Daniel thought _not again!_) and stuck there, the bricks distorting themselves to wrap around their hands and feet like manacles.

Buffy wondered whether Caelus could do magic. What he was doing certainly seemed like it. Not that she supposed it mattered whether he could or not - Willow definitely could, and it was possible that Caelus was doing magic through her.

"Why would you attack me? I have done nothing to hurt you - indeed, Daniel Jackson, I saved your life - and yet you repay me by stabbing me?" murmured Caelus, half to himself, as though it was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Buffy was startled at the approach he was taking "Wait, what? You freeze our friends-"

"And knock out an entire base, filled with people." interjected Daniel.

"Yes, and that, and burn my hands, and you say you haven't hurt us?" Buffy finishes incredulously.

"If I recall, you stabbed me. The burning of your hands, while regrettable, was a consequence of your actions. Thus the burning of your hands and the stab-wound in the vampire are entirely your fault."

All heads turned to Spike at the conclusion of that statement. The trio could indeed see blood slowly trickling through a gape in his shirt - but how could that be? It had been Caelus who had been stabbed.

Daniel opened his mouth to ask that very question, but Caelus rolled his eyes and made a negligent gesture with one finger. Daniel found the words he had been about to speak being forced back down his throat - a _really_ unpleasant sensation.

"The vampire happened to be the nearest person I could shift the wound to who could survive it for an extended period of time. As for the others, they are not frozen, they are merely seeing something that I wish them to see. It will be an ... interesting experience for them."

~*~.

Sam experienced a moment of doubt as she made her way to the auxiliary engine room. Just what was she doing here? And she been... but the thought faded away, along with the memory, like a dream does upon wakening.

She was aboard an Asgard ship - she and the other members of SG-1 had been beamed aboard to help deal with an infestation of Replicators. Unfortunately, the Replicators had gained control of the primary engines and had followed the path of the beam that had brought her team in. They were headed for Earth.

The Asgard, Fenrir, who had been manning (Asgarding?) the ship had already been killed, and the ship was mere minutes away from leaving hyperspace and landing on Earth.

Fortunately, Sam had a plan to stop the Replicators from landing and over-running her planet. Unfortunately, her team members would never approve, and nor would pretty much anyone else. Which was why she'd already beamed them down, without their permission.

Now she had a choice. She could wait for the other Asgard ship Fenrir had assured her would come to rescue her and Earth. It might come in time. Or it might not, in which case Replicators would soon land and her world would become nothing but a meal, and every human on it would be killed.

Sam's other option was to do what she was doing. She believe that she could configure the auxiliary engine to emit a pulse to essentially short circuit the components that held the Replicators together, killing them - but would unfortunately destroy the ship's navigation, forcing it to drop out from hyperspace and hit Earth at a colossal speed, killing untold thousands and causing havoc with the environment, not to mention leading to her own death.

But, even as Sam recalibrated the power output, she didn't really see that she had a choice at all. She had to decide between the lesser of two evils. And she chose.

The pulse fired, and the Replicators disintegrated. The ship left hyperspace and careened through the atmosphere, breaking apart before shields had a chance to kick in. A major chunk of it landed in Beijing, killing several hundred thousand in the initial impact. But Major Samantha Carter didn't live to see that. Nor the dust cloud that choked off all agriculture for miles around, later causing millions to starve.

But through her actions, life on Earth carried on.

~*~

Willow watched calmly through the window of Giles' house as he and Tara began the process of her re-ensoulment. Wait, what? A memory was struggling away at the back of her mind, but it soon faded away.

She remembered how scared she'd been when Spike had turned up at her dorm that day, the pain as he'd drunk from her, how eagerly she'd embraced death to get away from it.

Then Willow had woken up, and everything was different.

Of course, she'd known that the Scoobies would go down this route when they realised she had lost her soul - after all, they'd done it before, when Angel had reverted to Angelus. Which is why she'd prepared.

Willow had hired Ethan Rayne to begin a counter spell whilst her minions distracted the other Scoobies - she was sure that enough minions would even lead to the death of the Slayer - that would cause the ensoulment spell to backfire, resulting in everyone in Sunnydale losing their souls instead. Of course, Ethan had been reluctant, but a little torture soon changed that, and Willow had felt so much better afterwards.

Unfortunately, the counter spell couldn't be started until the ensoulment charm had begun too. How Ethan would know when, Willow was unsure. She just assumed it was a black magic thing.

The spell kicked in, and Willow doubled over in pain. She hadn't expected how much it would _hurt_. She could feel her soul clawing its way into its old place.

But she didn't have time for that now. With her newly rediscovered conscience, she couldn't allow her old plan to go through. She had to stop Ethan!

Oh, but her friends! Her minions had led them to the other side of town, and even now were commencing in their slaughter. She couldn't save the town and her friends, there simply wasn't the time. She had to make a choice.

But, as she ran to interrupt Ethan's spell, she realised that it was no choice at all.

~*~

Jack stood on the bridge of a cloaked Tok'ra mother ship, watching as a Goa'uld ship prepared to fire on the defenceless people of a primitive planet, and wondered how he'd gotten here.

But he knew that, of course. The Tok'ra's information had been insufficient, as it so often was. While there was indeed plenty of Ancient artefacts down in the planet, there was also a large quantity of heretic Jaffa that the Goa'uld wanted destroyed.

Teal'c, Daniel and Sam had ringed down to the planet, but Jack had stayed aboard - this ship interested him a hell of a lot more than any stuff he might see down there. Besides, what could he possibly do? He was no archaeologist.

Unfortunately, it appeared that, whilst the Tok'ra had spies in the Goa'uld ranks, the reverse was also true. A squadron of Jaffa had taken his team aboard the mother ship - the captain of which was apparently so cocky that he hadn't felt the need to raise shields.

Which gave Jack a choice. He could give the order to destroy the other ship, and save the planet, give the Jaffa a chance to relocate - and kill his friends.

Or, he could watch the planet burn, whilst he tried to save his friends - a nigh on impossible feat, by any reckoning.

What choice did he have? He couldn't let those people die. He gave the order to fire.

~*~

The world was going to be sucked into hell, and there was very little Spike could do about it. Oh, perhaps if he'd stopped Angelus from awakening Acathla in the first place, but Spike had been too scared of his sire.

Now, the Slayer was in the mansion, duelling with Angelus whilst his beloved Drusilla watched, cheering on, as the world began to end. And Spike, as much as he loved to kill people, wasn't ready for that.

He'd made sure he'd left the gas on in every possible room (it was a miracle the derelict old building still had gas. Spike supposed that's what came from living in a Hellmouth) but, even if he tossed a match in, it wouldn't be enough, not enough to be certain. If Angelus survived...

Ironically, it had been the Scoobies who'd provided the very weapon he'd use to save the world, and kill the Slayer. Of course, they hadn't know it at the time.

Spike hefted the rocket launcher to his shoulder, and sighted along it - not that he thought he'd miss, his target was literally as big as a house. And he was standing pretty close.

His last thought, between him firing and being enveloped by the explosion, was "_Goodbye, Dru._"

~*~

The quartet awoke gasping, disorientated by the multiple visions they'd all just seen - for each of them had seen each of the others - to find themselves bound into some kind of machine, their friends trapped against the wall.

Caelus stood before them, smiling benevolently. "Now, you understand."


	17. Chapter 17

"No, we don't understand. I don't have a clue. I don't know why you showed us those things, or what plan you've got that involves strapping us into this machine." said Jack, still a little out of things - which was hardly surprising, it's isn't every day that one opens fire on one's friends.

"It has got to be some kind of interface device, like the lock. It needs us to power it." stated Sam thoughtfully, trying to imagine what it might possibly be for.

"And seeing as how it involves the Hellmouth, you're either going to open it - which is unlikely, given this setup - or you're going to use it for something. A power source, perhaps?" continued Willow, being more adept on Hellmouth matters.

"Don't look at me, I'm with Jacky-boy. I don't know anything." finished Spike.

"What a surprise." murmured Buffy, but Spike's vampiric hearing picked it up and he snarled at her ferociously. She smiled impertinently back.

Caelus carried on, oblivious to the little interchange. "You're right. I'm going to harness the power of the Hellmouth, a fountain of disruptive energy that toys with reality just by being there, and channel it through you, the biological components, and into the machine, which will... accomplish my goal. Of course, you'll probably die."

"Right, got it. So why exactly did you show us those visions, and why did you go to such lengths to bring us here? Couldn't you simply have carried us when we were unconscious." asked a puzzled Sam.

"Free will! The Alterrans were big on that. They would not interfere, with anything. That's why they were driven out from our home planet by religious fanatics, the Ori. I'm pretty sure they could've forced the Ori to abandon their beliefs, dangerous as they were, but they chose to believe it, so the Alterrans let them, and left. They took the name Altera, because that's what they were. The Others." said Caelus.

"I'm pretty sure that if this comes down to free will, I wouldn't be here." snarled Spike.

"Really? So you wouldn't have walked all this way, knowing the danger, force your way through the barrier and into the building? Oh wait. That's _exactly_ what you did." sniped Caelus.

Spike sighed. "I meant here here. Strapped into a machine that'll probably kill me."

"I thought I'd honour them by leading you here by your own free will, but I got bored. You're near enough, anyway." Caelus said with a shrug.

"I left the Alterrans, too, back then. They had such advanced technology, more so than anyone else, but they just wouldn't share it. So, eventually, I found a race I could shape, and I moulded them so that we could travel across the galaxy. The Goa'uld. We formed a coalition of worlds, we gave the more primitive planets medicine, education, technology." said Caelus, apparently in full story telling mode.

"But the Goa'uld aren't nearly as advanced as the Ancients, or even the Asgard. They're scavengers. Besides, we haven't seen a scrap of evidence to show that they've ever been anything but tyrannical." questioned Jack.

"Exactly! You say the Goa'uld are scavengers. Who do you think they scavenged from?" asked Caelus.

It was a thorny question. SG-1 had always assumed they'd done it the same way they had - gleaning bits from old temples, forming alliances with more advanced planets, taking some from battlefields. But if it had been given them by an Ancient...

"Did you think that the Alterrans would allow me to do what I was doing? Oh, they couldn't stop me in the beginning, it was too late, and the Goa'uld already had the technology. But when they Ascended, everything changed." answered Caelus.

"You're saying the Ancients intervened? That they, umm, wrote you and your coalition out of history? But why didn't they kill you?" said Daniel, who had hitherto managed, through a great power of will, to be silent. He just couldn't manage it anymore.

But Willow thought she saw a hole. "These Ascended beings, they're pretty much all-powerful, yes? Then why would they let the Goa'uld live with even an inferior version of their technology? They conquered the galaxy with it."

"Oh, they tried. They tore away every memory of every technology that I'd ever given them. But the mind is a curious thing. Not even the Ancients could submerge memories indefinitely. They bobbed up - imperfect replicas of the original - but enough to enslave entire worlds. It's impossible to completely subvert someone's mind forever."

"But you can. You have. You did it to us, when we were forced into breaking your lock. Your mind took complete control of our bodies." Sam said.

Caelus merely smiled, and said cryptically "What do a Goa'uld, a vampire and an Alterran all have in common?"

It sounded like a bad joke. But the answer hit Sam like a punch to the stomach. She was winded by it, struggling against it. But she had to say it, or else she'd burst. "Genetics. Ancients all have the same gene, the activation gene, which they built into their technology so that only they could use it. Goa'uld share genes - they all have genetic memory. And vampires - well, they have to be all related if they share blood, so their genes have to be the same."

An idea hit Willow, an aspect of the one that had just occurred to Sam. "You made them, didn't you? The vampires. Giles told us that the last of the purebred demons blended its blood with a human, and it became the first vampire. The demon was you, wasn't it?"

"Clever girls. You see, it's a matter of immortality. The Alterrans did it through Ascension, the Asgard through cloning, and the Goa'uld through sarcophagi. I went a different way.

You see, people have an upsetting tendency to die. But entire races? That's a much rarer event. So essentially, I tied my genetic code into those three races - I even engineered the vampires for more surety. That's why, Daniel Jackson, that they didn't kill me. Because to do so, they'd have to wipe out three races - even the still unascended remnants of their own.

That's why Spike was stabbed instead of me - because, in a manner of speaking, his body is an extension of mine. That's why I can hijack your minds any time I choose.

And now, you're going to help me destroy those who imprisoned me. To destroy those who led to galactic enslavement. You're going to help me destroy all Ascended beings. Everywhere."

~*~

Author's note: oh yes, I completely forgot that Merlin got there first with his Sa'angreal. Don't worry, I'll include a shout out to that in the next chapter.


	18. Chapter 18

"Okay, so you've built a device that'll destroy Ascended beings in what? Six, seven hours?" said Sam, who believed that it simply wasn't possible to build such a device in so short a time.

"Oh, the ideas not mine. No, I stole it from an old colleague. Incidentally, Daniel Jackson, your translation of Myrddin will be wrong. As an ancestor of modern Welsh, the word would be pronounced Myrthin." Caelus replied.

"You're from the future?" asked Daniel, incredulously. If he was - and Daniel didn't see how he could be, but how else could he know the future - then what he was doing would have to cause a paradox, most likely with dire consequences.

"My prison exists outside of space-time. I've made numerous escape attempts, one of which was several years into the future, in which I encountered - no, actually I won't tell you. You'll be leaving this place, and it's never wise to change the future too much." Caelus answered, apparently deriving some childish glee from withholding information

Willow, however, had figured something out. If they were alive in the future, surely disrupting that would alter Caelus ever making this device and killing them to operate it, creating a paradox anyway. She said as much to him.

"Don't worry, I can sustain a paradox. Not that that will matter to you. You'll just die, unfortunately." Caelus answered. Then his face became grave, and he declared "But enough of that. It's time!"

With that, he regally slammed the point of his scythe into the ground, where it rang on and on. It was like an echo, but instead of the sound fading away, it got louder with every passing second, until it became deafening, and the entire room began to vibrate - and, it not being stable after the Mayor's explosion, plaster and dust began to drop from the ceiling.

Had anyone been able to move their hands, they would've clamped them over their ears, but as it was they had to sit idly by, incapable of movement.

Then the sound began to die away, and people no longer felt as though their brains might pour out through their ears. But although the room might've stopped vibrating, the machine didn't. The intricate network of wires began to hum an artificial hum, and the bodies of the people tied into them began to vibrate also. At first, it was a fairly pleasant sensation.

And then, suddenly, it wasn't. They were being shaken apart at a molecular level, and it _hurt_. Sam screamed out in agony first - it hurt more than the tool the Ashrak had used to kill Jolinar - and she couldn't stand it. Willow went next, followed by Jack. Spike lasted the longest before screaming because he bit his tongue to stop himself, but eventually he bit right through it, and his dumb howls joined those of his companions.

Then the pain stopped. Caelus had gone.

~*~

Caelus wasn't bewildered when he suddenly found himself somewhere white, with whiteness stretching out in every direction as far as he could see, nothing but whiteness everywhere. Even his prison had been more interesting than this.

Still, Caelus had expected that the Alterrans would make some attempt at stopping him, perhaps try to imprison him again - he didn't think they could, now, not now that he was prepared - or perhaps destroy his machine and transport him to some far off isolated planet. But wherever they put him, he would find his way back, and he would find his revenge.

A figure appeared to him, one he knew, although he had thought she had perished before she had a chance to Ascend. Many had, when the Ori sent their plague. He was glad to see her. "Ave, Salus." he greeted her.

"Ave, Caelus." she returned. Then, without any prevarication, she got straight to the point. "You can't do this." she said, speaking in their home tongue. It was pleasant to speak it again after so long spent silent or speaking the uncouth language of those who lived now.

"On the contrary, I rather think I can. You really backed yourself into a corner with your non-intervention rule, you know - you wouldn't stop the Ori when you had the chance, and you won't stop me now. And you can't run away. These people don't have any idea of what their so-called Hellmouth is really capable of." Caelus answered, somewhat smugly.

"You were never a murderer, Caelus. Even with that - monstrous darkness inside you, you never killed anyone, not like this. Yet now you would kill four innocents to wipe out your entire race? You will cause the greatest genocide of our people we have ever known." Salus pleaded.

Caelus didn't know why she was taking this stance. Begging him would never make him which meant that Salus must be up to something. A delaying tactic of some kind, perhaps. But why? What could they hope to gain?

"You know you won't convince me to stop. Your actions led to the enslavement of an entire galaxy, just as the Ori enslaved theirs. I can rectify all of that in one fell swoop." Caelus said, staring at Salus in the hope he could glean something from her about her plans.

"It wasn't us, you know. We didn't imprison you, we didn't wipe the memories from the Goa'uld or dissolve your commonwealth. Neither did the Ori, for that matter." stated Salus matter-of-factly, now examining him to see what he made of it.

"Liar." he spat. No one else had close to the power necessary to do that. He'd never even considered the possibility, not in all the untold aeons of his incarceration.

"What purpose could I have to lie, when we could stop you from ever again having the chance to destroy us?" Salus responded calmly.

Caelus knew she had a point there, although they probably couldn't stop him forever. They couldn't kill him, not without a massive genocide, and if they imprisoned him he'd free himself sooner or later. He knew that whatever else his race might be, they certainly weren't liars. So he said the only thing he could, in the circumstances. "Prove it."

"Very well."

She showed him the past, so vividly he almost thought he was there. She showed him his ships flying, the commonwealth growing, advancing, peace spreading. She showed him every Ascended being at the time when everything began to flow backwards, when his ships disassembled and vanished, the civilizations he had helped establish receding into mere villages - and himself, being dragged into his prison. And the Alterrans merely watched, powerless by their own law to intervene.

And yet, even with all the knowledge they had, everything they could find on their plane of existence, they hadn't a clue who, or what, had caused it.

"Oh." the single syllable, the shocked exhalation slipped past Caelus' lips without him knowing. He knew that what he had just been shown was what had happened - he could sense it - and he didn't know what to do. Probably the only reason he hadn't gone mad inside his hellish prison is because he'd made plans, constantly, on how to get his revenge. And now they'd gone up in smoke.

"What do I do now?"

~*~

Author's note: Salus is the Roman goddess of salvation. It seemed fitting.

Oh, and it's true about Myrddin being Myrthin. That's the way it works in Welsh, which is what they say they were speaking back then! Or close enough.


	19. Chapter 19

"Okaaay." said Buffy slowly, staring at the place where Caelus had been standing moments earlier, before suddenly he... wasn't. "What just happened?"

"The Ancients. They must've stopped him." surmised Daniel.

Teal'c, who had slowing been weakening the bonds tying him to the wall, gave one almighty heave and broke loose, stumbling forward from the effort. He lost no time in trying to break people free from the machine - they seemed to be in shock, and were in no position to help him - but the material it was made of was too tough for him.

Buffy, being the Slayer, was annoyed that she hadn't done that first. With her mystically augmented strength, it was a simple matter to break her bonds - she'd have one so earlier if she hadn't thought Caelus would just stuff her right back in - and, although the machine was considerably tougher, she was eventually able to break her friends and colleagues out.

Daniel, though, was another matter. The bonds were too close to his flesh for her to get a purchase on, and smashing them would smash his limbs as well, which might not be the best idea. For once, it was easier to break out than to break in.

Normally, she'd ask Willow to try a spell (always a risky endeavour, but in these circumstances, probably the better option.) but she was just staring blankly at the wall. All four of those who'd been in the machine were, even Spike, who seemed to have blood dribbling from his mouth.

Buffy sat next to her best friend and took her hand. Willow didn't resist, she didn't even seem to notice. Buffy whispered to her, softly "Will, can you hear me? You have to come back now. We need you. Will?" but there was no response. Evidently, the pain was so great they'd retreated deep within themselves to get away from it.

Daniel saw what she was trying to do, and tried to help - not that he thought he'd be able to get through to her when her best friend couldn't, but it had to worth a try, didn't it? "Willow, we need to get out of here. Wake up, Willow, come back."

Willow blinked, the first movement she had made, and Daniel beamed as he saw life begin to flow back into the hitherto dull eyes. She spoke, her voice harsh from screaming "What happened?"

Then the memory, which she'd unconsciously repressed, came back in full force. Willow curled up into a foetal position, rocking gently back and forth as tears streamed down her cheeks. She couldn't stop them from flowing, and she didn't try. She just muttered to herself "Oh god oh god oh god" as tough by saying that she could get the memory of the incredible pain out of her.

"Yes, I'm sorry about that." said a new voice - not a member of the Scoobies or of SG-1, nor even the constantly changing tones of Caelus. Everyone who wasn't in shock or curled into a ball turned to see the newcomer - a tall man, with black hair, streaked with white (or possibly white hair streaked with black) and dark blue eyes. He was dressed in a flowing white robe.

"Who're you?" Buffy asked cautiously.

"This was my appearance, before I spent so long in prison that I forgot what I looked like. I am Caelus." said the man - Caelus. "I came to apologize, it was a mistake -"

But Caelus was cut off when Willow launched herself at him, hitting and scratching at every bit of him that she could reach. Buffy, on instinct, moved to stop her, but decided that Caelus deserved everything Willow was doing to him.

Caelus just stood there and took it all, not saying a word or attempting to fend Willow off. Eventually, even her fury wore off, and she stepped away from the battered man. Buffy moved to comfort her, but Willow shrugged her off.

"As I was saying, I'm sorry. I made a mistake, I never should've forced you into this. It wasn't the Alterrans that did this." Caelus said softly.

"Do think that makes it alright? Just saying sorry makes it acceptable to have tortured four people." screamed Daniel, surprised at the sudden rage that he was feeling. He'd been tortured before, but never had he had a reaction like that.

"No, it doesn't. Nothing ever could."

White light began to emanate from Caelus, sweeping over everyone. Buffy found her burnt hands were healed, Spike's tongue became as good as new. Daniel's bonds broke, and those who had been in the machine found their memories of it being pushed backwards, until it felt as though it had happened years ago.

The light spread further, and the Jaffa who had strayed over the years into Caelus' prison and instantly died there, only to be run by another's mind, awoke as though from a sleep, and found themselves back on their home planet - not in the present day, but as though they had never left.

And still further, invisible to all save those it affected, as it washed over the SGC and the numerous Airmen, woke, none the worse for wear for having slept on the floor for hours.

And then the light vanished, Caelus with it. For, millennia after the rest of his race, he had finally Ascended.

~*~

The group trooped back to Giles' in silence, each contemplating the events of the past few days.

But people can only spend so long dwelling on the past. Spike sped up to catch Sam, and said to her "So, do you visit other planets a lot, then?"

"A fair bit, yes." Sam answered, unsure where he was going with this.

"Well, so, umm, when you're on this planet, would you, umm - oh hell, I haven't had to do this for about a century, and I wasn't much good at it then - so, anyway, would you like to have drinks or something or whatever you humans do?" Spike wittered. Seeing Drusilla - even though he knew that it hadn't been her - had really hit it home how they'd never really worked out.

"Sure." replied Sam, fighting the urge to smile. It was refreshing meeting someone who didn't immediately claim to love her - or love the Snake that had briefly possessed her - and besides, Spike at least lived on this planet, even if he wasn't human.

"Don't just turn me down out of hand - wait, what?" Spike was stupefied - pretty much the only two women in his life had been Dru, who'd made a play for him rather than the other way around, and Cecily, which had never happened. Darla could hardly be said to count. Yet his meandering blather had got a yes!

"See you in Colorado!" said Sam cheerfully, going off to speak to Jack.

Spike watched her go. After more than a century of life, he still hadn't the faintest clue of what women were thinking.

~*~

"Are you alright?" Daniel asked Willow conscientiously.

"No. Well, yes. Maybe. I will be. Oh, I don't know! This whole thing happened because my boyfriend left me, and I went for a walk." Willow answered - well, tried to - knowing full well she was talking nonsense.

Fortunately, as well as countless other languages and dialects, Daniel was fluent in Nonsense. "Willow, for a smart girl, you really can be a bit of an idiot. You can't possibly blame yourself because you went for a walk!" then he inwardly cursed himself for being too familiar.

"Yeah, you're right. I'm going to do it anyway, for a bit, anyway." said Willow, who didn't mind. She was just that kind of a person - she even irrationally blamed herself for Oz leaving, even though she knew that it wasn't her fault.

"Well I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to blame Jack." Daniel replied.

"Why?" asked Willow, surprised.

"Aren't we blaming people who had nothing to do with anything?" said Daniel innocently. Willow hit him playfully, and he winced theatrically.

They walked on in silence for a few more moments before Willow said "Thank you."

"Anytime."

~*~

"So, you're an alien, huh?" Buffy asked the hulking Teal'c.

"Yes, for many years now." he replied.

Buffy pretty much ran out of things to say at that point.

~*~

The group convened in Giles, living room, filling in those who had stayed behind. Unsurprisingly, they all thought that Caelus would come back and, as Xander put it, "Kick them in the ass." No one thought he was wrong.

However, Jack received a call from Hammond telling them that the base was up and running, he'd come back from Washington and was looking forward to their debriefing. He'd been kind enough not to make it exactly an order, but Jack got his meaning right enough.

Which really left nothing to do for the two teams to exchange numbers and promises to call if anything came up - Spike looked a little bemused when Sam handed him her number, modern technology really wasn't his thing - and to keep in touch, and leave.

Slowly, everyone filtered out - Spike got the unprecedented honour of not being tied up - and went to their respective homes, in Sunnydale or at the SGC.

Willow headed to her dorm a little earlier than Buffy - in fact, left earlier than everyone, not really wanting to say goodbye - and found, sitting on her bed, a cube.

It was an interesting cube, engraved with the runes which Daniel had identified as belonging to the Ancients. But that wasn't the interesting part - nor was it the odd way in which the cube occasionally, for no discernible reason, suddenly became invisible.

No, the truly fascinating part was the note it sat on. It was parchment, written with a fine copperplate script in iridescent grey ink.

_Give this to Doctor Daniel Jackson._

Seeing that, an epiphany hit Willow. She grabbed the cube and the note - wincing at the unpleasant lack of feeling touching the cube brought on - and rushed back to Giles', hoping that no one else had left yet. She had an announcement to make.

Fortunately, her luck was in, everyone was still there. Buffy, catching sight of her friend standing in the doorway red faced and panting - and unpleasantly reminded of earlier in the week - said "What's wrong, Will?"

"I can't stay here." Willow burst out. "I've nearly died here too many times - you've died to many times - and there's been too much heart break and loss and - I can't stay here."

"What're you talking about?" asked Xander, although he could tell from her expression. But Willow just gave him her resolve face, and he quieted. It would be better to convince to come back rather than to stay, anyway.

Willow continued. "And you don't need me anyway, here. But it's time that, well, that I nearly died somewhere else. So if like to go with Da- you guys, if you don't mind?"

There was silence whilst Willow breathlessly waited for SG-1's response.

Daniel replied "Of course you can."


End file.
